“Tracked the invoice, everything,” she says.
Passing through the front doors of the criminal court building, Jay is rather grateful for the useful prop of the cell phone, pressed to his ear. It has a strange, pacifying effect on the throng of TV and newspaper reporters, bringing their questions down to a reasonable pitch, as if they’re hoping to pick up the other end of Jay’s phone conversation. Gregg Bartolomo leans against the railing at the bottom step, waiting for him. Jay ignores him as he did every day of jury selection. Walking faster, Jay thanks Lonnie for making something out of this shitty first day of trial. “But there’s a problem,” she says.
Of course there is, he thinks.
By the time Lonnie finds him at the office, about a half hour later, Eddie Mae is already gone for the day. Having a week ago completed an extensive inventory of all things Pleasantville–every environmental report from the civil case, every deposition and client file, the ones that were there and the 290 files that are still missing–she is, by Jay’s own instructions, free to leave by five. She left some sliced ham and a pot of soup for them on the stove, and upstairs in the conference room an updated key and map to the filing system she set up for State of Texas v. Neal Patrick Hathorne, every piece of paper associated with the case accounted for. The only thing she hasn’t touched is the cardboard box from Lonnie’s days at the Post. The corners are starting to tear, and Jay is careful to lift the flaps gently. He is rooting around in the interior when Lonnie walks in. “You heard from Rolly?” he asks right off. “He’s not answering my calls.” It’s not like him to disappear, not at all.
Lonnie shakes her head as she sets her leather hobo bag on the conference room table, followed by a plate of ham and a stack of dill pickles. She stopped by the kitchen on her way up. She nods toward the box. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for the person who delivered Alonzo Hollis to the cops.”
“It was the van, remember? They had an ID number off the side.”
“Right,” Jay says, nodding. “And maybe he was parked out there once or twice, catching a smoke or a nap sometime in his van and someone made note of it. But Magnus Carr today . . . that’s what reminded me. The community has been keeping their eyes out for years. So who was the one who told that bogus story about Hollis trying to get a girl in his van, over at the truck stop on Market Street, the one the cops refuted because Hollis wasn’t in the state when it happened?” He slaps a stack of papers down, digging into another pile.
“Jesus, that’s him,” she says, realizing. “That’s the guy.”
“Why else would anybody make something like that up?”
“Unless they wanted the heat on somebody else,” she says.
Jay nods, because he knows it too. “It’s someone in Pleasantville.”
Lon jumps in, nudging him aside. “Let me. I have a system.”
She starts in on the years of handwritten notes of police reports and witness statements, digging her way to the bottom of the box. “You better hope I’m as good a reporter as I think I am. If I didn’t write it down at the time, it’s not here. Resner never gave me copies of any police reports, just a quick peek.”
“What happened with the flyer?” he says, getting to the other big news.
“Yes,” she says, moving away from the cardboard box to reach for her leather bag. Inside is a photocopy of a handwritten invoice. Jay takes it from her. Stapled to the back is a copy of the printer’s original mock-up. It’s the BBDP flyer all right, exclamation points and all. “It was a special order,” Lonnie says. “The guy had to find a special typewriter to make it look that old.”
“Where?”
“Print shop out Highway 6, edge of the county.”
Jay flips back to the copy of the invoice, the line just below the date.
The invoice is made out to “America’s Tomorrow.”
“Wolcott’s name is nowhere on this.”
“And therein lies the problem.”
“You’re saying this wasn’t Reese Parker’s doing?”
“No,” Lon says, bending at the waist to reach for a dill pickle. “I’m saying I don’t know who or what ‘America’s Tomorrow’ is, and until I find out, we don’t know anything.” She crunches into the pickle on the side of her mouth, looking comically like the Vlasic stork. She reaches for a slice of ham.
“He have a description for who placed the order?”
“White male,” she says, chewing. “They grow on trees out here.” She shrugs. It’s hardly useful.
Jay’s mobile phone rings.
He slides it from his pants pockets, checks the number on the screen. He should have heard from Rolly by now. But it’s Evelyn. “I have to go get my kids,” he says, sighing. He starts scooping up Lonnie’s handwritten notes.
“Leave it,” she says. “I’ll go through it.”
“You sure?”
“Go get your kids. I’ll stay and pick at this and find out what I can about what’s happening with Tomorrow in America, or whatever the hell it’s called.”
“How are you going to do that from here?”
“That little box down there called a computer,” she says. “I got all night.”
“I don’t know if I like the idea of you here by yourself.”
Lonnie smiles, sheepish.
“Well, Amy might stop by,” she says. “Her man’s out of town.”
“Right,” Jay says. “The mysterious Amy.”
Across the table, Lon stares at him, searching for something.
“Go on and say it. You think I’m being played for a fool.”
“I think it’s none of my business.”
“I hate when you do that, you know,” she says, hurt or disappointed, he can’t tell. “You think you’re making some kind of grand show of respect, giving people their space, but what you’re really saying is that you don’t give a shit.”