"Seriously," he said, when Merrion laughed. "I don't know if you'd be familiar with her, with this woman, Judge. But I do know my friend Amby here is, and that's why he's laughing now. He knows how much fun it is when you've got a question that you need an answer to, right away. It'll take you about two or three days to get it through channels, maybe even back and forth with Washington, much more tim en you've got. Louella could answer it for you in about fifteen seconds if she would, but she wont. She says she can't, but the real reason is she wont. She just hates giving out information. I don't know what it is, protecting her clients against us? Doesn't make any sense; we're trying to help them. But if you can get the time of day out of that one, you're doing better'n I am."
"Sam always speaks very lowly of Louella, Judge," Merrion said to Cavanaugh. "I've told him many times he shouldn't do it, but he just wont seem to stop."
"For the record, Sam," Cavanaugh said, 'she wont tell me anything either. If instead of dumping the chore on Amby, I pick up the phone and make the call myself, the result is the same. I get the same answer both of you get. The woman was born saying: "No." No wonder she's never been married. She's probably still a virgin."
"Yeah, well, I guess I'm glad to hear that," Paradisio said. "At least now I know it's not just me, not just Feds and all, some grudge she's got against us. Makes me feel a little better, know at least I'm not alone.
"But anyway, Lowell gave us the Shepard woman's address as the place where he'd be living before he got out of jail last March and ended up here, lucky us. He told us she's a niece of his. He definitely did not say she's his daughter. But according to him she'd be thirty-four not thirty-two, as she told the Park Rangers. She's a ninth-grade dropout from a school in Lockport, New York. Those three kids she had with her all named after movie stars are by three different fathers.
'"His niece," now?" Cavanaugh said.
"Yeah, "niece," Paradisio said. "Look, I know I don't look too good on this. I didn't do that great a job here. But my guess is she isn't his niece. My guess's that there's some connection between where he was, right before he robbed that last bank with the machine gun after he got out from McNeil Island. He's got some connection out there in New York State that we really don't know all that much about yet. We're not that far along. And then when he got out last spring he came back here and moved in with this Linda Shepard and her three kids, down in Springfield. This Ronald Bennett that you tell me was with her: we don't know where he came from.
"She had a place on State Street way the hell out up beyond the Armory there, up near Winchester Square. Not a bad place at all, pretty roomy; should've been enough for her. Three bedrooms, small dining room, big living room, reasonably good-sized kitchen, not that you'd wanna try and cook a banquet in it, anything; but still, you know, for nothin'? Should've been okay for her. Plus it had a bath-a-half. It's a mostly minority section, African-American and Puerto Rican. That does make it sort of surprising she'd seek that out, want to locate herself up there with them. Lookin' for the trouble, the first place, or else she wouldn't've gone there. But in her circumstances? She's got three kids and she's on welfare: how much choice'd she have? And besides, Lowell's mixed blood himself, half black and white, half Hispanic. He knew he was getting' out, maybe he wanted to live there.
"Anyway, that's where she was when Lowell showed up and moved in. Eight or nine weeks after that, it's June, and now Bennett joins the party here, and then not too long after that, they all hadda move out. Which brings us up to the events of this weekend. And that's where you come in here, I guess, Amby."
"Okay," Merrion said. "Putting together what the Rangers and then the cops were able to get out of this woman last Saddy night, plus what I was able on my own before court this morning, managed to pry outta Daggett, everything was hunky-dory with Shepard and the kids until Chappelle showed up. Everyone was doin' fine. Wasn't workin', of course, nothin' quite as dramatic as getting' a job, maybe doing something now and then to earn her keep, but with the Essesseye and the Food Stamps and the AFDC and the rent subsidy, well, they're getting' along. They're warm and they're eatin' and they've got clothes to wear and the kids seem to've been going to school.
