Dream With Little Angels (20 page)

“You okay?” I asked.

He looked terrible, like he was sick or something. His clothes didn't help. He had on a T-shirt that looked like it should have seen the bottom of a garbage can a long time ago. It was smudged with dirt and ripped along one of the seams. It hung untucked over a pair of jeans that were only in slightly better shape. His black hair probably hadn't been cut since at least Easter and was in need of a good combing. It hung over his soft gray eyes in a way that made it impossible to guess what he might be thinking.

As I looked at him, I couldn't help but remember those twins sitting in front of Luther Willard King's house. In my head, I gave myself a good talking to for these thoughts, assuming they had to be racist.

Awkwardly, Jesse James Allen gave me the briefest of nods before ducking into the Mercantile. Dewey pulled up beside me as the door closed, the bell attached to its top ringing.

“Never mind him,” Dewey said to me. “My pa says he ain't been right since the fire.”

“He used to say hi to me,” I said, feeling a bit dejected.

“Looked to me like he ain't sayin'
nothing
today.”

I gave the door one last consideration.

“Are we lookin' for Mr. Farrow or not?” Dewey asked. He'd started slowly down the sidewalk again.

I nodded. “I'm coming.” I began pedaling, leaving all thoughts of the store and Jesse's rudeness behind me.

It didn't take me long to catch back up to Dewey. He wasn't nearly as fast a rider as I was. “Let me ask you something else,” I said as I coasted up to his side. I wanted to get back to my issues about the Ruby Mae case being related to Mary Ann Dailey and whether or not Mr. Garner was innocent. I decided to try approaching the problem from the opposite direction. “Do you think Mr. Garner might have killed Ruby Mae Vickers all them years ago?”

Dewey glanced away from the street and looked at me, confused. “No, 'course not. Why would he be puttin' flowers out for her if he did that?”

I nodded slowly, more to myself than to Dewey. That was the main question that had been rattling around inside my head ever since I'd seen Officer Jackson pull out his handcuffs and bring Mr. Garner's hands behind his back out there on Holly Berry Ranch.

But there
was
something else, too. Something I
knew
I had forgotten. Something
important
. But, no matter how hard I thought about it, I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It was as though it was just waiting there, hovering in the corner of my mind just outside of reach.

“Look!” Dewey shouted, interrupting my thoughts. We had just turned down Main Street, and two blocks ahead of us was none other than Mr. Wyatt Edward Farrow himself. There was no mistaking those cowboy boots, vest, and hat. He was still carrying what I was now completely convinced could
only
be a shotgun box. He was walking in the same direction we were going, so he didn't see us behind him.

We hit our brakes, slowing nearly to a stop. “We gotta keep back at least a block or two,” I said quietly. I knew something about tailing a suspect from all the years growing up with my mother.

“I'm not so sure that looks like a shotgun box to me,” Dewey said.

“What else could it be?”

“I dunno. Roses, maybe?”

“Now, why in heck would Mr. Wyatt Edward Farrow be carryin' a cardboard box full of roses down Main Street at seven in the mornin' on a Saturday?” I asked.

“I dunno,” Dewey said. “Why would he be carrryin' a shotgun in a box down Main Street at seven in the mornin'?”

“Because he's up to no good,” I said. That one was easy.

“There could be anythin' in that box,” Dewey pointed out. “Maybe a baseball bat.”

“That makes even less sense than the roses. At any rate, we'll never know unless we follow him and find out.”

Mr. Farrow walked another six blocks or so until he came to the post office. He tried the door but, of course, the Alvin Post Office is
never
open before nine o'clock,
especially
on Saturdays when I figured it probably stayed closed until noon. We pulled up to a stop a few blocks away, trying not to look conspicuous.

“What's he doin'?” Dewey asked.

“I dunno,” I said. “Maybe he was goin' to start shooting everyone working at the post office, but showed up too early.”

“You think if he were gonna do somethin' like that, he'd be smart enough to check up on their hours first.”

We watched him ponder the dilemma of the not-yet-open post office for a few minutes until he took a card and a pen from the pocket of his jeans and wrote something on the card before tucking it into the top of the shotgun box. Then, with a suspicious glance up and down the street, he propped the box against the post office door. Luckily, he didn't see us when he looked around. With one final consideration of the box and the locked door, he started walking back our way, whistling to himself.

“Let's turn around,” Dewey whispered.

“No,” I said. “Let's wait until he's long past and go see what he wrote on that card. Maybe we can even open the box.”

“I don't think that's a very good idea,” Dewey said.

“You don't think any of my good ideas are very good. It's part of why you never . . .”

I started explaining all this to Dewey when I heard a car pull up beside us. I nearly ignored it completely, even when I heard the door open. But seconds later, my mother was yelling at us in a way that, had I not heard her screaming all them cuss words at Carry's boyfriend last night, might have actually scared me. She was telling us to get in the goddamn car and that we don't go stalking neighbors and we
especially
don't sneak out of the house without asking permission first.

I saw the color drain from Dewey's face as she came around and held the door open and we clambered into the backseat.

“She's really mad,” he said.

“It was your stupid note,” I snapped back.

“Hope she didn't bring her gun,” he said.

Outside, my mother was throwing our bikes into the trunk of her car. She wasn't being too gentle about it.

“Didn't you learn nothin' last night?” she asked me after she got inside the car and pulled her door shut.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“With Carry and her boyfriend? Did you not learn anythin'?”

“I learned that you don't take kindly to boys parking with Carry, and that when you pull out your gun, you tend to use some words I never heard you use before.”

She hesitated then, and I wasn't sure if I'd maybe said something really wrong. But I saw her struggle not to smile, and my stomach calmed a bit. “Well, that's not what you were supposed to learn,” she said. “You were supposed to learn that you don't sneak out of the house. And I already told you about how you should be treatin' our neighbors.”

“But—” I started, but stopped when she held up her finger. Her face was red and I could tell she was angry. Dewey, on the other hand, obviously didn't know my mother as well as I did.

“Ma'am, we saw Mr. Farrow carrying a box that may or may not have contained a shotgun. It could have had roses in it, I thought, but Abe pointed out that my idea made less sense and that it probably
was
a shotgun. Then I figured it maybe was something like a baseball bat, but again, Abe—”

“Dewey,” she said, turning right around to him. “Do yourself a huge favor right now and just stop talkin', all right?”

Nodding, Dewey said very matter-of-factly, “All right, ma'am, I will do just that. I was only tryin' to point out that if someone actually was walkin' around with what could possibly be a loaded firearm and perhaps—and this again was Abe's theory—had planned on shooting up the post office, I think it's somethin' that—”

My mother's eyes closed and her head came down on the top of her steering wheel.

I turned to Dewey. “Dewey. Seriously. Shut up.”

He nodded. “All right,” he said.

My mother sighed, shaking her head. “And next time you leave a note, Dewey? Don't incriminate yourself if you don't have to. It's just . . . stupid.”

“I was being honest,” he said, again, very matter-of-factly.

“There's honest, Dewey, and there's stupid. Learn the difference, or you'll end up in my jail or dead or somethin' one of these days.”

Seriousness fell over Dewey's face. “All right, I will do that. I will learn the difference.” He was keeping his own, I'll give him that much. I heard not even the slightest hint of shakiness in his voice.

My mother shook her head again. “You're a very strange boy, Dewey.”

He gave another nod.

My mother pulled the car out onto the street. I gave Dewey an elbow. “Told you your note sucked,” I whispered, but my mother shushed me and told us both not to say another word.

We didn't.

S
hortly after starting back home after apprehending me and Dewey, my mother's car phone rang. I was beginning to suspect maybe my theory was right. Maybe most folk
do
keep the same early-morning Saturday schedule as me, except they just don't go to work. They just walked around with shotguns in cardboard boxes or called people on the telephone.

“Chris?” my mother asked after she answered. “What is it?”

“It's Officer Jackson,” I whispered to Dewey.

“I'm not dumb,” he said. “I know that.”

“Great,” my mother said into the phone. “I'll be right there.”

She hung up and set the phone on its stand. “What did Officer Jackson want?” I asked.

Surprisingly, she didn't answer by telling me to mind my business. “The initial forensics report on Mary Ann Dailey's in.”

“And . . . ?” I asked.

“And we're gonna stop at the station on our way home,” she said. “Chris and Ethan are already there, along with one of the experts from Mobile. Apparently he showed up before sunrise this morning. I assume that won't mess up your boys' schedule or nothin'?” she asked.

I could tell she was being sarcastic, but I don't think Dewey did. “No, ma'am,” he said. “That should be fine.”

She nearly laughed. “What about your mother, Dewey? Think she'll be okay with you bein' out a bit longer?”

“I reckon she won't care either way,” he said. “Most likely she's back to sleepin'. She don't normally get up before noon on the weekends. She must've gone to the bathroom or somethin' if she saw my note.” It sounded cold the way he said it, but I knew it was true. I saw in my mother's eyes that she did, too.

“I can't believe the expert from Mobile works on Saturdays,” I said. “And so early, too. He must've started on the road before five.”

“Police work ain't like normal work,” my mother said. “Sometimes you gotta work odd hours.”

As we pulled up to the station, I thought my mother was about to tell us to wait in the car, but even the short drive up Main Street had calmed her down considerably. By the time the car was in PARK, she hardly even seemed upset anymore.

“Can we come in and say hi to Chief Montgomery?” I asked my mother.

She thought this over, closed her eyes, and answered with a deep breath. “Fine. Just tell me you two actually learned somethin' today. I still can't believe last night didn't open your eyes all the way, Abe.”

“I already told you I
did
learn somethin' last night,” I said. “It just weren't the thing you thought I did.”

“It wasn't the thing I
wanted
you to learn, would be more precise,” she said.

“Well, next time maybe you should tell me what I should be learnin' upfront. I think maybe that might make it easier for everyone.”

She pretended to understand this. “Maybe. Do you at least know what you were supposed to have learned this morning?”

“That I don't sneak out of the house?” I asked.

“So far so good,” my mother said hesitantly. “And?”

“And that me and Dewey don't follow our neighbors tryin' to figure out what it is they're doin' that's so suspicious.”

My mother shook her head. “You should've just stopped with that ‘I don't follow our neighbors'; the rest of it is all some sort of figment of you boys' overactive imagination. Which, I might add, I'm beginnin' to find a mite disturbin'.”

“But,” I started, “what if—”

“Abe,” she said, “just drop it. Understand? Trust me, this is somethin' you should've done a long time ago.”

Out my window, two old men strolled past on the sidewalk. Seemed like the whole town was awake. Except probably Carry and Dewey's mother.

I searched my mind for some way to make my mother see that it wasn't our imaginations at all and that
she
was just being blind because of some silly rule she had about neighbors, but I came up completely empty.

“You know what I learned?” Dewey asked.

My mother tilted her head back and stared at the car's ceiling. “What's that, Dewey?”

“That I should be as untruthful as possible from now on,” he said with complete, utter confidence.

My mother looked at me over her shoulder, her eyes meeting mine. She gave me a look of exasperation that near on made me laugh. I could tell she was close to giving up on trying to get anything through to Dewey. “Do me a favor, Dewey?” she asked.

“What's that, ma'am?” Dewey asked back.

“Just . . . just don't tell your mother what it is you think you learned. And maybe go back to havin' learned nothin' this morning. How does that sound?”

“Confusing.”

“Good enough,” my mother said, and opened her door.

“So, are we coming, too?” I asked.

She bent and stuck her head back inside, looking over the seat at Dewey. “Well, I don't rightly trust you two alone in my vehicle, so I guess that's the only option I got.” She winked at me and I knew we were no longer in any sort of trouble. I started wondering if we really ever were. I think my mother might have used up all the anger she had on Carry's boyfriend last night.

 

“Don't touch anything,” she said as we followed her inside the station. “Or at least please
try
not to?” She watched Dewey head straight across the room to the water cooler just as he'd done the last time she brought us here together and added, “Or at least nothing important.”

Dewey looked back at her.

“No, Dewey.” She sighed. “The water cooler ain't important. You're fine.”

Officer Jackson and Chief Montgomery leaned over what was usually my mother's desk. One of the forensic officers I recognized from the swamp that day in the rain sat between them on my mother's chair. His hair looked freshly cut, even shorter than it had been then. Even his goatee looked trimmed. Up close, he looked much older than he had that day in the rain. His eyes were a dull blue that looked up from the pictures and file folders strewn across the desk as my mother approached.

“Leah,” Chief Montgomery said, “you remember Officer Philip Diamond from Mobile? Officer Diamond, this is Detective Leah Teal.”

Officer Diamond half stood from his chair and shook my mother's hand. “Nice to see you again,” he said. Not only did he look older, but when he rose from his seat, he also seemed much taller than I recalled.

A black hardcover notebook was lying off to the side. I hadn't seen it before and guessed it belonged to Officer Diamond. It was almost as though he had completely taken over, although if my mother minded at all, she didn't show it.

Officer Jackson and Chief Montgomery were both in uniform. My mother, of course, was not. Neither was Officer Diamond, who wore a black collared shirt and tan pants. As he once again fell back into my mother's chair, a musty cologne wafted through the room, nearly making me cough. He didn't smell nearly as pretty as Carry did now that she wore perfume.

My attention was drawn to a gurgling and bubbling across the room, where Dewey was slowly filling up one of the paper cups that I'd never seen anybody but him actually use. I looked back to the four officers crowded around the files and pictures, keeping a few steps behind my mother so as not to look conspicuous. I guess I did all right, because they ignored me while they talked about Mary Ann Dailey.

I had a pretty good view of the stuff scattered across the gray desktop, but I purposely avoided looking at them photos. From the slight glimpse I did catch, I knew right away they weren't the sort of pictures I wanted in my head. It was already hard enough getting to sleep having to deal with the image of Mary Ann Dailey lying in that shallow hollow of dirt beneath that beautiful willow out there in the mud.

“So what do we have?” my mother asked.

Officer Diamond slid the black book across the desk and lifted it in his hands, flipping through a few pages before finally answering. “Well,” he said, “for starters, we found a nice assortment of food in her stomach, most of it only partially digested. She had eaten shortly before her death, probably within a couple hours. Three maybe, at most.”

“What sort of food?” my mother asked.

“Let's see,” Officer Diamond said. “Biscuits, blueberry jam, potato chips, garlic dip, and a chocolate bar.” He glanced up. “Most likely, we figure it was a Three Musketeers.”

My mother's hand came up and rubbed her eyes. “Sorry,” she said, “I'm usually more awake than this, but doesn't all that sound more like she was at some slumber party, sittin' round watchin' movies? It certainly don't seem like she was bein' raped and made ready for killin'.”

Officer Diamond nodded. “Exactly. And it's all pretty much like that. We even found traces of ice cream and cake in her intestines that had been consumed earlier on.”

“All we're missin' is the soda pop and pizza,” Officer Jackson said.

Officer Diamond looked up at him. “No, we even found that, too. Well, the soda pop, anyway. Traces of root beer coating the lining of her bladder. 'Course other than that, the rest of her bladder and bowels were pretty much empty.”

“Right,” my mother said, as though this made perfect sense to her. None of it made any sense to me, other than that it sounded like Mary Ann Dailey got to eat much better than me. “What sort of physical evidence have you uncovered?” my mother asked.

“Not a helluva lot,” Officer Diamond said. “Three hairs other than her own on her entire body. Two of 'em belonged to Garner's dog, and the other came from Garner himself. Then, of course, there's all that blood of the victim on Garner's shovel, as well as dried skin matching that of the suspect.”

My mother picked up a pen from the desk and tapped it against her lower lip. I think it was the only thing still on the desk that actually belonged to her. That and the stuffed dog I bought her for Mother's Day. Across the room, Dewey finished filling the paper cup and placed it on top of the cooler before beginning to fill a second one. Nobody but me noticed.

“Anybody else's blood on that shovel?” my mother asked.

Officer Diamond shook his head. “Just the girl's.”

Frowning, my mother tapped her lip some more. I could tell she was disappointed about this information. She cast a glance to Officer Jackson. “What about the boot prints you were tryin' to get?”

He shook his head. “Wasn't enough definition to get anything worthwhile. The downpour washed all the details away. Even any tire tracks we may have hoped for were too messed up by the time we got there. What little we did manage to get seemed to be congruent with Garner's work boots.”

My mother let out a deep breath. “Well, I suppose, given what we've got, so far it sounds like we got the right man.”

“Oh, there
was
one more thing,” Officer Diamond said. “We found light traces of organochlorine compounds and ammonium nitrate on the victim's skin. That's not a huge surprise, mind you—these are basic chemicals regularly found in farm-use insecticide and fertilizer. All very consistent with her being kept on a farm or a ranch of some kind. We even found light particles of hay dust in her lungs and hair, even though her hair had been recently washed.”

Dewey placed cup number two on top of the cooler and started on number three. Sometimes I had no clue what went through his mind.

My mother shook her head, confused. “He washed her hair?”

“Quite often, judging by the soap residue left on her scalp and the rest of her body,” Officer Diamond said. “Bathed her and washed her hair, probably once every two days or so.” He looked back down at his book. “Oh, and there were a few boll weevil bites at the base of her neck. We also discovered traces of chicken feces particulate on her skin. Our theory is that she was dragged from wherever he kept her to whatever vehicle he brought her to the murder scene in after her last bath. At that point, she was likely already dead.” He paused. “So, as I said, everything points to her being kept on some kind of farm or ranch.”

“Well, we already knew that,” Officer Jackson said.

My mother stared off at the far wall. “Does Bob Garner still have chickens?” she asked.

They all looked at each other, waiting for one to answer. After a few awkward seconds, I took the initiative. “Yes, he most certainly does. At least a dozen and a big ol' cock. Me and Dewey saw 'em that afternoon we showed up and Mr. Garner was working on his tool shed.”

I think my voice startled them. Until now, they had forgot I was standing there listening.

“Abe,” my mother said, “why don't you go play with Dewey?” She looked over at the three full cups of water precariously balancing on top of the cooler while he filled number four. “. . . Or find something else to entertain yourself with.”

“Why?” I asked. “I was the only one of all of you who knew about the chickens. And you know what? I can tell you right now, she wasn't kept on Mr. Garner's ranch.”

“I agree with the boy on that one,” Chief Montgomery said, looking up from the series of photographs he'd been going through. He gave my mother a look I took to indicate his displeasure at having me present. “Or, if she was, Tiffany Michelle Yates certainly isn't. We searched that entire ranch, every square foot of it, going through it with a fine-toothed comb.”

“Unless she's well hidden,” Officer Diamond said.