And burden it was. Even without the gun, the bag weighed a ton. I settled it on my knees and stared at it, trying to decide what to do.
Emily elbowed my arm. “I don’t remember that purse.”
I positioned my mouth a few inches from her ear and said, “That’s because it’s not mine.”
“Then who…?” she began. Her jaw dropped in a pantomime of surprise until she snapped it shut with a quick tap on her chin with the back of her hand. “Mother!”
“I probably should look through it,” I said.
“To find out who it belongs to?” Emily grinned.
“Naturally.” I grabbed the handles and pulled until the purse yawned open on my lap. A black wallet lay on top. I plucked it out and handed it to Emily.
Emily unfolded the wallet, smiled, and turned it in my direction. A younger, darker-haired Virginia Prentice scowled out at me from the corner of her driver’s license. “It’s evidence now, huh?”
Emily returned the wallet and I flipped through its plastic sleeves checking the names embossed on each credit card before I remembered that Darryl would have to account to the police for that particular crime. I reached the last sleeve and flipped it over, not to a credit card, but to a picture of a young bride. My stomach clenched. Julia. Her dark brown hair swirled high on her head in an elegant crown interwoven with seed pearls and orange blossoms. Soft spit curls nestled against each cheek. She was smiling. “Oh…”
Emily leaned close. “That’s Virginia’s daughter, isn’t it?”
“Must be.”
“So sad.” I tucked the wallet into the purse and leaned back against Paul’s knees. “We’ll take it to the police in the morning.”
I was able to keep my hands off the purse for the space of two free throws before being compelled to peer into the bag again-a lipstick, hairbrush, ballpoint pens, some loose coins. I thought I knew why the damn thing weighed so much. I felt along the dark silk lining and discovered a zipper compartment large enough to accommodate several paperback books. I drew the zipper across and pulled out what I knew had to be there, LouElla’s log book, plus a DayTimer, a packet of business cards, and a flat paper bag. I handed the miscellaneous items to Emily and turned to LouElla with the log book.
“Look what I found, LouElla.” I handed the log back to its owner.
“Oh, thank you!” LouElla clasped the log to her chest for one joyful moment, then lowered it and addressed her remarks to its black and red covers. “You are going right home with me, you little rascal.”
I laid a gentle hand on her arm. “I think you’ll need to give it to Captain Younger, LouElla. It may help prove that Virginia poisoned Darlene.”
“It will?” LouElla’s eyes widened in genuine surprise. “How?”
I retrieved the log, opened it at random, checked the date heading, then leafed forward several months to early December. “Look.” I tipped the log toward her. “This is the day you first saw Virginia fooling around with Marty O’Malley’s mailbox. Darlene died of an overdose of clonidine. The police will check with the AARP Pharmacy Service to see when they sent out Mr. O’Malley’s Compres pills. If that date corresponds with the shipment that disappeared, it may help to convict her.”
LouElla nodded her head. “Good. Shouldn’t be tolerated. Tampering with the mail is a federal crime, you know.” She stabbed the air with an index finger. “Not a good idea to mess with the feds,” she continued knowledgeably. “Because they mean business.”
While I still had the log in my hands, I thumbed back to early summer, remembering the curious notations I had seen there previously. I pointed at one now: jb23.
“LouElla? What does jb23 mean?”
LouElla’s eyes remained glued to the court where a red-white-and-blue basketball whizzed from one Wizard to another, over heads and under legs, upside down and backward, at a feverish pace. “June bugs,” she explained. “Pulled twenty-three of ’em off the roses that day.”
Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? “Silly me,” I said.
“Mom?” Emily was elbowing me frantically. “Look at this!” She passed me a newspaper article about a fatal plane crash. Stuck to it was a lime-green Post-it note: Too bad you weren’t aboard. “It was in the bag. There’s a card in there, too,” she said. She handed the card to me. “It looks like it came off a computer.” Written across the face of a bucolic landscape were the words You can make the world a better place. I opened the card. Leave it!
Emily stared at me with troubled eyes. “I guess Virginia got tired of waiting for Darlene to go voluntarily.”
As much as I wanted to hear the bagpipers, we were too exhausted and drained to make it back downtown for the annual Parade to Midnight, or to the laser light show in the tent at City Dock. As the magic hour approached, we wandered from Halsey Field House to the terrace outside the Naval Academy Visitors’ Center which overlooks Annapolis Harbor and Spa Creek. Across the harbor, a large neon crab pot steamed on the roof of the parking garage of the Marriott Hotel. As midnight approached, the countdown began and the blue crab began its inexorable descent.
Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen…
My cancer behind me, my family safe around me. A new millennium, I thought, and a new beginning for everyone.
Twelve, eleven, ten…
Daddy standing side by side with Cornelia Gibbs. However “accidentally” Cornelia had run into him at the fast-food concession in Halsey that night, he would negotiate a postponement of his cruise until March so that he and Cornelia could sit in adjoining deck chairs on the Wind Star off Belize.
Nine, eight, seven…
Emily nestled in the shelter of Dante’s arm with Chloe napping, open mouthed, on his shoulder. Years later Chloe’s parents would tease that she slept through the new millennium on the very night her baby brother was conceived.
Six, five, four…
Ruth sat alone on the seawall, feet dangling over the water. Before the week was out, her financial problems would be over, when Darryl Donovan was arrested and charged with ten counts of grand theft, theft over five hundred, theft under five hundred, and credit card theft. Now the lawyer handling her case seems to be taking more than just a professional interest in his client. Ruth calls him “Hutch.”
Three, two, one…
Paul kissed me once, curling my toes. And later? Well, you can imagine.
Happy New Year!
The millennium crab plunged the final few inches into the pot, flashing from blue to red. Cheers erupted from points all over the harbor as a salvo of fireworks was launched into the night. In the first flash, I caught sight of LouElla, her cheeks glistening with tears. I was filled with shame. In my happiness, I had nearly forgotten about her. In the past year this woman had lost her only son, had pulled my father from the depths of alcoholism, had thrown herself between my daughter and the bullet that was meant for her. With Darryl going to jail, I planned to put in a good word with Deirdre so that LouElla could keep Speedo, at least. I reached for LouElla’s hand, gathered it up into mine, and squeezed.
“Do you know something, LouElla?”
“What?” she said dreamily.
“J. Edgar Hoover would have been very proud of you today.”
She beamed as red-white-and-blue pinwheels exploded over our heads. “He would, wouldn’t he?”
“He’d pin a medal on your chest.”
She bowed her head and concentrated on finding something in her bag while I watched the double hoops in her ears revolve like iridescent Catherine wheels. “You know, everyone thinks I’m crazy.”