Chapter 29

 

After the detective left, my stomach started rumbling loud enough to rival Paddy’s growls. I was ravenous; I hadn’t eaten since noon. There wasn’t much in the refrigerator, but I opened a can of soup and made a grilled cheese sandwich, after trimming the mold off the edges of the cheese. I really needed to buy groceries. Paddy asked to go out, which gave me a moment’s pause. I had told both officers that I was fine, but I hadn’t been thinking about going outside myself. However, I realized if someone was still out there, Paddy would tell me about it, loudly. However, I decided not to let him loose. I clipped him on the leash and ventured only a few steps beyond the kitchen stoop. He was completely unconcerned about the woods or any noises he might be hearing. That was reassuring.

My stomach wasn’t full yet, and I rummaged around and found a wrinkled apple in the bottom tub of the refrigerator. Even better, there was one square of dark chocolate wrapped in foil. It must have fallen out of the bag I’d finished off last month. I gave Paddy a couple of extra dog biscuits, then unwrapped the chocolate, closed my eyes, and let the luscious treat melt on my tongue. Amazing, how one small piece of chocolate could calm the nerves.

My arm was sticking to the bandage in a couple of spots, so I unwound the gauze and was glad to see the road rash forming dotted lines of scabs the length of my forearm. None of the wounds had been deep, but they had bled and oozed, making it too messy to leave uncovered. I’m a great believer in fresh air to promote healing, so I chose to cover only the few spots that were still open with non-stick pads and gauze. I switched to a short-sleeved t-shirt, got a clean pillowcase from the bathroom shelves, laid it across the top of my blanket, and crawled back in bed. Resting my arm on the cool, clean, smooth fabric, I opened my book.

I thought I had slept enough for the night, even though it was only three in the morning. However, after a couple of chapters, my eyelids were heavy. I turned out the light and fell asleep again.

When I awoke, it was late morning, too late to get cleaned up and make it to church. I was feeling a lot better though, and I dressed in jeans and a fresh t-shirt. The scabs on my arm were now quite dry, and I expected the two areas that were still covered wouldn’t need bandages very much longer. Except that the skin felt tight, it didn’t really hurt, and there was no sign of infection.

It seemed like a good day to mow the lawn and accomplish some other chores. Eating without buying food was going to be a challenge, but I wanted to support Adele and shop at Volger’s Grocery, which wasn’t open on Sundays. There was always peanut butter, and I still had eggs and bread. There was a jar of pickle relish and some mustard, but I’d need mayo to make egg salad. If I felt motivated, I could run over to Fairgrove Road and buy some vegetables at Bidwell’s roadside stand. However, the truth was, I’d had enough adventures and people for a while, and I just wanted to spend the day alone. I almost succeeded, until Adele called.

I’d mowed the lawn and gone in the kitchen to get some iced tea when the phone rang. I thought about ignoring it, but old training made me pick it up.

“We missed you in church today,” Adele began with no introduction. I didn’t mind. I’d gotten used to Adele; I even liked her. She made sure she knew everything that was happening in Cherry Hill, but her heart was pure gold, and she was always ready to help people.

“I know. I overslept.”

“I can understand that. I thought you might not be feeling well, or that something else might have happened out there.”

I suspected Adele already knew about my shadowy visitor, so there was no point in trying to keep that a secret. “There was someone prowling around in the trees in the middle of the night, and Paul Peters came out, but the person had already left.”

“Could you tell who it was?”

“Not at all. It was a really dark night.”

“What did they want?”

“How should I know?” Sometimes Adele’s questions were annoying.

“Well, somebody seems to be afraid of you.”

“How do you figure that?”

“They ran away from you the other night, and now they’re watching you. Maybe you were supposed to see the intruder last night. Maybe it’s like a warning for you to stay away.”

One thing Adele didn’t know about was that I had been crowded off the road by a truck. I hadn’t thought of that incident as part of a plan to intimidate me. But that was a ridiculous idea. How would anyone have known I was going to be walking along that back road? I hadn’t even known it myself until just before I’d left the house, and I hadn’t told anyone where I was going.

“Ana, are you still there?” Adele pulled me back to the conversation.

“I’m here. Sorry. Stay away from what? I don’t know any more about this case than you do.”

“You must,” she insisted. “Actually there’s one thing you don’t know yet. That’s why I called.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m so glad you told me about those footprints, otherwise I wouldn’t have understood the information on the scanner. They weren’t discussing details. Anyway, everyone has been working on this, Tracy and the Sheriff’s Department. They even got the State crime lab involved.”

“What did they do?”

“That tread pattern must have been pretty unusual.”

“I thought it was. I’d never seen anything like it, but styles change all the time.”

“Apparently they identified the shoe type and size on Friday morning. Those are $500 shoes!”

“Who around here buys shoes like that?”

“Exactly. They’ve been trying to match them ever since. They’re so expensive it’s unlikely someone walked around in them and then discarded them, or bought them just to make tracks as some sort of fake lead.”

“Do they know whose they are? It seems as if they’d pull that person in, at least as a material witness, if they found the shoes.”

“I know it! Nothing like that seems to have happened, though. But I know a few people they checked on.”

“Who?”

“Frank Garis, for one.”

“His name keeps coming up, doesn’t it?”

“It does, and I’m not sure why, except that Ralph has been shooting his mouth off a lot. Maybe Frank and DuWayne did more than play football together, even if no one saw him hanging out with the drug crowd.”

“Anybody else?”

“I think they got the Illinois State Police to look for DuWayne and check his shoes. There were conversations about Chicago, and there’s no one else involved in this case who lives there.”

“What did they find?”

“No matches were reported on the scanner. I’m not sure they even found DuWayne. Right now, they sound really frustrated whenever the topic comes up. They don’t know who else to check, unless they start trying to match any people who happen to be Angelica’s age.”

“They’ll never get warrants for connections that thin, will they?”

“Probably not, but I think they’re getting desperate.”

“What about Pablo Ybarra? His sister told me he lives in Emily City.” I remembered Juanita reminding me of this when she had stopped to help me. What was she doing on that back road? I thought she had said something about Mulberry Hill, but I couldn’t remember her exact words.

“I wonder if they can get a warrant on someone just for being DuWayne’s friend. I haven’t heard them mention Pablo. There’s always Larry Louama. No one knows where he’s living.”

“Adele! How do you find out these things?”

“I talked with his mother in the store yesterday. He hasn’t been home, but they’ve already been calling her because he hasn’t checked in with his parole officer either. She’s really tired of having her life disrupted because of the shenanigans that boy pulls. She and Marko are fine people. Larry just went off the rails somewhere.”

“He’s probably not anywhere around here. He knows they’d look for him near his old home.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Adele, I need to go. I’ve got to figure out something to eat.”

“Is that difficult?”

“Well, I don’t have much in the house. I might need to run over to Bidwell’s for some veggies.”

“Do you want company for a while? I could bring the food. You’ve got a grill don’t you?”

I thought of the small tabletop one I’d purchased in May. “I have that little one I bought from you. And charcoal.”

“That will be perfect. You get some coals going. Leave everything else to me.”

What could I say? Adele was generous, but slightly lonely since her husband had died the previous year. I decided that spending the rest of the day with her could be fun.

“All right,” I conceded with a laugh. “Come on out.”

After we ate our fill of kielbasa in buns, broccoli salad, and ice cream, the rest of the day was spent in light pursuits. We chatted about things as insignificant as the colors of my walls or as important as Star and Sunny, and played “knick-knack-Paddy-WHACK” with Paddy. Adele wasn’t much of a walker, but we strolled some distance out and back on my trail at a leisurely pace. The only thing that kept us in mind of the unsolved murder was the Sheriff’s car parked in my driveway. The shift of watchers changed once during the afternoon. A cruiser pulled in the driveway; a deputy emerged, nodded to us and walked toward the grave site. In a few minutes, the one who had been on duty appeared, jockeyed the cars around so as not to block my access to the driveway, and drove away. We were so used to it, Paddy didn’t even wake up from his nap.