Free Dead Little Dolly by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli

there a minute, Emily. Don’t go judging people like that. These boys trying to make something of themselves and I say go for it. Give ’em the benefit of the doubt.”
    I stood with my head down, properly chastised for a few seconds before Lucky stuck a manila envelope out toward me. “Give this to Dolly,” he said. “Should’ve thought about her first. Ariadne Wilcox. Child endangerment. Think you and Dolly should get out there. That boyfriend of hers got eighteen months for burning her baby. Dolly testified at the trial that got both Ariadne’s babies taken away from her.”
    “Aren’t we looking for a guy? I thought that’s what Dolly said. I mean, the car that ran into her.”
    “That’s what I’m saying. The guy’s a monster. Didn’t get half enough time. Worth looking at. That man popped off everywhere, what Dolly did to his ‘family.’ That could fit with the ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal’ business. Guy like that, brain like that, could think he had a right to do whatever he wanted to do to little girls he fed and sort of clothed.”
    I looked down at the file envelope in my hands. “Ariadne,” I said almost to myself. “King Minos’s daughter. Kind of like a spider. A weaver of webs.”
    “Yeah, well,” Lucky, no student of mythology, said and took a minute to get his face under control. “This one’s a spider all right. She’s the one left her hopped-up boyfriend alone with her little girls. Just as evil as he is, you ask me.”
    I didn’t want to think about evil like that and didn’t ask any more questions.
    After a while, Lucky went on. “About that Will Friendship. Tell Dolly he’s off probation. Nobody’s seen him in more than three months.”
    “Anything on the prints from the note?”
    He shook his head. “Nothing so far.”
    When I got into the newspaper Bill Corcoran sat behind his desk, mussed head of thick brown hair dipped down over an article he was editing, muttering to himself as he worked. I hated to interrupt, but if you didn’t interrupt Bill he’d never look up.
    As it was, I startled him, the middle finger of his left hand flying to hold his horn-rimmed glasses in place, or push them up on his head. He always took a minute or two to focus, then he’d place you, then break out a wide, warm smile that never failed to make my day.
    “So, Emily.” He leaned back in his creaking chair. “How’s your friend doing? Baby okay?”
    “Fine. Hairline fracture. It’s all here in my story.”
    “I’m happy for her. Hope she doesn’t take that baby out with her anymore.”
    I shrugged then shook my fistful of notes at him. “I need to use one of your computers.”
    That arranged quickly, I occupied an empty office and got to work.
    I put in the “Thou Shalt Not Steal” bit after all. If the lead on the article featured that—and I was sure it would—a lot of people would be drawn to the story and not pass right over it. What I figured was that Dolly and Lucky needed all the help they could get right them and I was a conduit to the public. Somebody always knew something that could help.
    As I was leaving, Bill called me back into his office to say the newspaper was throwing a picnic for the employees, plus stringers like me. He assured me it would be fun. He’d let me know the date. Fun wasn’t what I was interested in right then but I promised I’d make it if I could, and for that I got a funny look, as if maybe he’d asked me for a date and I’d missed it completely.
    After I stopped at the library to pick up a book on caring for babies and was on my way home, I told myself to stop reading things into looks and offers. A picnic was a picnic was a picnic and nothing else. By the time I pulled down my drive, I’d gotten over worrying about Bill’s feelings and decided the look I got from Bill was because I forgotten to say I’d bring the potato salad.

ELEVEN
     
     
    A couple days later, with not much happening in Dolly’s case and me milking old facts for