I remembered the cartons I’d seen being loaded into a panel truck the last time I was at the plant before the fire. That must have been the partial load Zamar was taking home.

“Your family sent in Freddy,” I supplied. “How did Bron get involved?”

“Oh, you don’t know anything!” he cried out. “Bron was the person doing it! Only he hired Freddy to do the actual dirty work. They’d just tell Bron, do something to the plant, they wouldn’t spell it out, and he’d get Freddy Pacheco to collect all those dead rats, or—or take that frog dish and put it on the wires.”

My phone rang. Morrell, saying they’d had a look around and hadn’t found anything, meaning Marcena’s recording pen, and he was going to bed.

“Mary Ann okay?”

“I think so,” I said; I remembered in time not to blurt out the news that Billy and Josie were there, just said there were a few things that I needed to take care of since I hadn’t been here for a week.

I turned back to Billy. “How long have you known about the frog? Why didn’t you go to the cops?”

“I couldn’t.” The words came out in a whisper. He was staring fixedly at the tabletop, as if trying to fall into it and disappear, and I had to prod him for some minutes before the rest of the story emerged.

On Monday, he said he’d drive Bron to the warehouse in time for Bron to pick up his rig. Billy was planning to clean out his locker, and he’d leave the Miata in the employee parking area for Bron to drive home at the end of his shift. Bron, in turn, would drop Billy at the South Chicago commuter train station before going to his first delivery point.

On their way to the warehouse, Billy asked Bron what his plan was for getting the money for April’s heart surgery, and Bron said he had an extra insurance policy that Grobian had signed up for, and he showed Billy the frog picture, the same one I’d been carrying around. Billy asked what it was, and Bron said part of his policy, Billy didn’t have to know more than that, he was too nice a kid.