Paddy Plays in Dead Mule Swamp (10 page)

I didn’t have anything to add to this,
so I squeezed her hand and we continued on to the house.

Chapter 16

I told Len and Star, as gently as I
could, that there was definitely a body in the swamp and after
that, casual conversation never had a chance. Evening was coming
on. Paddy curled up in his kennel without being told to. Deputy
Brown went outside. Apparently we weren’t being kept under close
watch.

Finally, Star said, “I’m
hungry.”

Len said he hadn’t had dinner either,
and I assured them that there was plenty of food, although it would
be pretty much the same as lunch. We busied ourselves making
sandwiches, and fortified the leftover salad with more lettuce.
Star boiled water so we could have tea with the light meal.
Although we thought we were hungry, after the food was fixed no one
felt like eating very much of it.

Deputy Brown and the one named Paul
who was sent back to summon the DNR remained outside in one of the
cars.

Just as the last of the light was
fading, Detective Milford walked in the kitchen door. He seemed to
have taken over the house as his base.

“Mr. Leonard, let’s go in the living
room,” he said. It wasn’t an invitation; it was a
command.

Len nodded and stood up stiffly with
the aid of his cane. The men left the kitchen, and I looked at the
girls. They both looked very tired.

“Could we come to church with you
tomorrow, if Grandpa says it’s OK?” asked Star.

“Of course,” I said.

“I know we haven’t gone much, but I
think it would make me feel better.”

“Me too,” added Sunny. “I like the
singing. I remember that. It made me happy.”

“Did you used to go to Crossroads
Fellowship?” I asked, surprised.

“Sometimes,” Star explained. “Grandma
liked to go. She was friends with some lady there, but it was
easier to stay home than to drive into town. Most of the time she
just watched church on television.”

Len returned to the kitchen. “We can
go home now,” he said quietly.

“Can we go to church with Miss Ana
tomorrow?” Sunny asked.

He looked at me, a bit pointedly, I
thought. “Is she asking you to go?”

“No, Grandpa!” said Star. “I started
it. I want to go like we did with Grandma. You come, too.
OK?”

“I guess so. Sure. It might be a good
idea, at that.” I could almost see the struggle inside him,
understanding that the girls wanted to make things be like old
times, while he knew that it would never be the same again, given
the reality that Angie could never return. He’d obviously always
hoped, no matter how unlikely, that she might come home. “We’ll
drive into town. Service is at eleven?”

I nodded. “I’ll meet you outside if
you’d like.”

“Good, we’ll sit together. Now, let’s
go home and get some sleep.”

Detective Milford was waiting in the
living room. I had been able to see him over Len’s shoulder, and
was thankful that he didn’t feel the need to barge in until the
Leonards left. Then he told me what would be happening over the
next few hours.

“We’ve got a DNR officer on the way
here, with lights and a generator. We’ll probably be working all
night, coming and going. It’ll be disruptive for you, but this is
the closest access for vehicles. We have to remove the body, such
as it is, and preserve any evidence that might be left. I want to
get that done before word starts getting around. Seems silly to
hurry after seven years, but curious people do strange things. Of
course, there’s little chance we’ll find very much of value. It
could be anyone, but at this point we’re assuming it’s Angelica
Leonard.”

“Do you think it is?”

“Probably. The body’s female, about
the right size. There’s the bracelet. Not much chance that’s a
coincidence, since there were only three of them, and the other two
are accounted for. I can’t say officially, of course. Forensics
will have to study it.”

“I understand.”

“What else do you know about
this?”

I explained that I knew next to
nothing, since I’d only lived here for three months, and had known
the Leonards for two weeks. I offered to leave the kitchen light on
and the door unlocked so the officers could come in to get drinks
or use the bathroom during the night.

Milford thanked me for that and let
the screen door slam behind him as he left.

Paddy must have been startled by the
noise of the door, because he woke up and came into the kitchen. I
put him on his leash and took him outside for a minute. Then, after
I set out some mugs, teabags, instant coffee, cocoa mix and a
package of cookies, we climbed the stairs and I slipped into my
pajamas. I thought I’d have trouble getting to sleep, and was
planning to make a mental list of things I might say to the
Leonards, and things I probably shouldn’t say. But I fell asleep
almost as soon as I lay down.

When I awoke, sun was streaming in the
window, and Paddy’s head was resting on my ankles. One foot was
asleep. I hadn’t heard a thing all night.

“Off,” I muttered at the dog while
trying to wiggle my dead foot.

“Oof?” Paddy yawned and jumped off the
bed. My foot began to tingle as I tried to focus on the clock with
my sticky morning eyes. Fortunately, I hadn’t overslept.

When I let Paddy out, I saw that all
the police cars were gone, except for one. The cookie package was
empty, and several mugs had been placed in the sink. Three greasy
pizza boxes were stacked on the counter. There was no one in sight,
either in the kitchen or outside. I wondered if someone had been
ordered to stay at the location in the woods, but since no one had
appeared by the time I needed to leave, I could only
guess.

“Sorry I was grumpy, earlier,” I told
Paddy, scratching his ears and rubbing his shoulders. “But you have
to go in your kennel, anyway.” I shut him in and drove into
town.

I arrived at Crossroads Fellowship
just a few minutes before the Leonards and was glad I had gotten
there first, thinking it might be awkward for them to have to wait
for someone they knew. I was aware that several church members
listened to their police scanners with as much devotion as they
listened to Sunday sermons. It was a near certainty that half the
congregation had already heard what happened yesterday, and that
the rest would know before dinnertime. I hoped churchgoers would be
as tactful and kind as they should be, but I suspected I couldn’t
count on it.

Len, Star and Sunny all smiled when
they saw me standing at the bottom of the steps which led to the
peaked oak door of the white church. We went in together and chose
a pew about halfway down the aisle, but nearer the left side than
the middle.

One thing I liked about the church
building was that it wasn’t too plain, but neither was it too
ornate. There was lovely old woodwork set off by the cream-colored
walls, and the windows were stained glass, but geometric patterned,
not fussy with Bible scenes.

Several people whom I hadn’t
previously met came over and said hello before the service started.
One lady introduced herself as Beatrice Lindstrom. Len seemed
particularly pleased to see her, and told me that she had been
Becky’s good friend.

“The two busy Bs, we called
ourselves,” she said with a little twitter. “Is it true they’ve
found Angie?” The question might have seemed nosy from a casual
acquaintance, but I could hear the genuine concern in her
voice.

“Probably,” said Len with a catch in
his voice. “We have to wait for an autopsy to be sure, but I know
it’s her.” He touched his heart.

“I’m so sorry,” Beatrice said. “Call
me if I can help. I really mean that.”

“I will. Thank you.”

“You girls have grown so
much!”

Star wrinkled her nose, but Sunny
said, “I’ll be in sixth grade this fall!”

“My goodness. How about
you?”

Politely, Star answered, “I’ll be a
sophomore.”

“Oh! There’s the pastor. We’ll talk
later.” Beatrice patted Star on the arm and scurried to find her
seat.

The music was a mixture of old hymns
and some newer worship songs that I was just beginning to learn.
Clearly, my companions weren’t such guests as I had thought they
would be, as they sang more of the words than I did. Except for the
past month, I hadn’t attended a church for years. I was surprised
to learn that Len had an excellent baritone voice. There was a
greeting time in the middle of the service, and several more people
came over to say hello, including some young people, which made the
girls happy. During the sermon, Sunny snuggled up against me and
when I looked down at her once she smiled at me in a shy and
secretive kind of way.

Afterwards, there was a lot of milling
about during coffee time in the fellowship hall. People came and
said hello to Len, others chatted with Star and Sunny. One man was
hanging back, waiting to speak to us privately, and I suddenly
realized why Deputy Brown had looked familiar the night before. I’d
seen him every Sunday that I’d been coming here. There were a few
African-Americans who attended this church, but I hadn’t known he
was in law enforcement. His eyes were red, and I wondered if he’d
had any sleep.

When other people had drifted away he
approached. “I just wanted to say how sorry I am... me personally,”
he began.

“Thank you, and thank you for waiting
with Star and me last night,” Len said.

“I had to be professional then, but I
wanted to tell you that DuWayne and me were in the same class. We
weren’t real close, but we grew up in the same neighborhood. The
whole thing is a damn shame. Excuse my French in church, but it
is.”

Len nodded. “I called DuWayne this
morning. He does stay in touch enough that I have a current phone
number.”

“Is he gonna come?”

“Yes, he’s on his way. He’ll be here
tomorrow. I think we’ll have some kind of memorial service. It’s
not clear that we’ll ever have a body to bury. Detective Milford
said it’s almost certainly... not... a natural death. And since it
was so long ago, they’ll need to keep everything for evidence.
‘Cold cases don’t get solved quickly,’ he told me.”

Brown turned his shoulder and said,
“Excuse me, ladies.” He began to whisper in Len’s ear, but I heard
most of what he said. “There were knife marks on a couple of ribs.
We could see that, real clear, when we packaged up the remains. Did
any of her friends carry a big knife?”

Len squinted but didn’t answer the
question; he looked like he had a headache. Between the events of
the past day and sitting for an hour on a hard, narrow pew, I was
sure he was experiencing more than one kind of pain.

“Thanks for letting me know, Harvey,”
Len said, purposely turning to include us again. Now I knew Deputy
Brown’s first name. “I’ll try to remember anything I can about the
week before she disappeared. You know, I was never asked very much
about it, back then.”

“I know, brother. It’s hard to get
respect, sometimes. Take care of those beautiful children.” He
shook hands with each of us, and left.

I offered to take us out to lunch, but
Len said he really needed to go home and lie down for a while. He
walked out to his car slowly, leaning heavily on his cane. The
girls each gave me a little hug, and Sunny said she would call me
when their dad arrived, so I could meet him. As I helped Len into
his car, Star turned and said, “I’m glad we came. Sometimes people
don’t know what to say to us, because we’re different, you know.
But I can tell they care, even when they do dumb stuff like pat me
on the arm. Thanks for everything.”

Chapter 17

Monday morning, Sunny phoned to tell
me her father had arrived late Sunday night. She said he was
planning to spend some time with them and she and Star wouldn’t be
able to work on their sewing projects until he had gone home again.
She didn’t sound either pleased or unhappy, but oddly indifferent,
as if she were discussing the weather.

I called Adele at the store to find
out if there was going to be a meeting of the Family Friends
committee soon. Justin Gorlowski, Robert’s nephew, answered the
phone. He was working at the grocery for the summer months. I
learned that Adele had gone on a trip to check out a possible
produce supplier, and wouldn’t be home until Wednesday. From this I
deduced that there would be no committee meeting earlier than
Thursday, and that Justin must have come a long way in
understanding the grocery business since I had watched him bumble
through his first few days at the store, back in May.

At long last, I assembled a dog travel
kit and put towels, blankets, a filled water jug, the new bowl, a
brush, an extra leash, plastic bags, a couple of balls, some treats
and a plastic container of food into a large carton and stowed it
in the back of the Jeep. It took up almost as much room as the dog
himself.

It appeared that I had the rest of the
day free, and I knew just how I was going to use the time. After
taking Paddy for a short walk down my familiar trail, I clipped him
on his cable run and drove in to Cherry Hill to Jouppi’s Hardware
to look at paint samples. I returned with primer, ceiling paint,
and several gallons of a buttery off-white paint that wasn’t quite
yellow, but looked very rich. A handful of color cards displaying
shades from seafoam green to teal were jammed in my back pocket. I
was toying with painting one end wall a bright color.