Stone Cold Dead (11 page)

I retrieved my camera and billfold from the guard, then braced myself at the door, pulled my collar tight, and made a dash for my car. The cold hit me like a slap, stinging my eyes and blistering my lips. I heard the guard laughing at me as I hurried through the snow, but at least I didn’t slip. The car door handle crackled stiffly from the frost but opened after two sharp yanks, and I ducked inside. The Dodge groaned to life, and I rubbed my gloved hands together for warmth before gunning the engine and driving off. I wanted to shake the dust of the Fulton Reform School from my heels as soon as possible. Depressing hole. Plus, the faster you drive, the sooner the heat kicks in.

I swung onto Kendall Road and headed toward Route 5, about six miles ahead. My City Desk meeting was at 11:00, and my watch showed 10:40. No problem, I thought. Plenty of time. And I had a good trick ready for Georgie Porgie, too: a clever scheme involving George’s new Pontiac and three boxes of wet cotton balls. He’d be driving around in a white cloud until the spring thaw. I had a good chuckle just thinking about it. Then I felt something cold on the right side of my neck. And it was sharp.

“Just keep driving,” said the voice behind me.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I gasped and nearly drove off the road, but a hand slipped around my clavicle and held me steady. Once I’d come down from the ceiling, I began panting furiously, my mind careering in search of an out. The pressure on my throat caused me to gag, and my passenger ordered me to stay calm. Why hadn’t I locked my doors? Better still, why had I taunted a pack of poorly supervised juvenile delinquents? I pictured myself plunging over the shoulder of the road in a spectacular, fiery, cartwheel of doom, coming to a tortuous, painful end: me slumped over the steering wheel, my jugular sliced clear through, as the car eventually scraped slowly to a halt against a snow bank beside the road. I knew without looking that it was that mutant, Frankie Football Mustache, holding the blade to my throat.

Imagine my relief when I glanced in the rearview mirror and discovered that my stowaway was actually Joey Figlio and not Frankie or one of his inbred chums.

Employing an abundance of caution and attention to his feelings, and staring straight down the icy road as I drew deep, calming breaths, I asked Joey to take the shank away from my neck.

He eased the pressure slightly and informed me that it was a knife, not a shank.

“Where would I get a shank?” he asked. “I took a knife from the cafeteria.”

“Take it off my neck, Joey!”

He complied but then told me to pull over up ahead.

“Pull over? What for?”

“Sorry, but I’m going to have to steal your car.”

I told him I had no intention of pulling over, and he stuck the knife against my neck again, this time a little harder. I sensed it was only a butter knife, but he could still cut my throat with it.

“Pull over now,” he said and he meant it.

I rolled to a stop and yanked the parking brake.

“Now get out,” said Joey.

I reeled around to look at him, sure that he was joking. But he looked annoyed.

“Come on, hurry up,” he said, shooing me with his free hand. “I got to get out of here.”

The heater had just started working its magic, so I wasn’t keen on leaving the warmth of the car.

“It’s ten degrees outside,” I said, but he wasn’t moved.

He climbed over the seat from the back and landed next to me with a heavy bounce. Before I could react, he’d reached past me and pushed open the door, inviting a blast of arctic air inside. Then, the rotten little thug shoved me out onto the ground. The very cold, hard ground. I rolled a few feet into the road, righted myself, and scrambled back to the car on my knees. I reached out for the door handle, intent on fighting for my warm car, and managed to grab hold of it just as Joey pulled the door shut. The engine roared, louder than I would have imagined possible, and the tires spun on the frozen shoulder, firing gravel and ice like buckshot behind them. The wheels soon found their traction, though, and the car shot forward, taking me with it.

God knows what I was thinking, but I held fast to the door for about twenty yards, skidding along through the frozen slurry of snow, salt, and dirt covering the road, tearing my stockings and skinning my knees as I went. I’d seen plenty of local kids skitching in the frozen streets. After a cold snowfall, they’d lie in wait along the side of the street until a slow-moving car rounded the corner. Then they’d dart into the road, grab the rear bumper, and crouch down low, knees bent, boots skating over the snowy surface. It looked like fun. Too bad I was wearing heels, one of which had fallen off when Joey hit the gas.

Once I’d accepted the bitter fact that Joey had no intention of redressing his ungentlemanly conduct and inviting me back inside, I let go of the door handle and tumbled several rotations before rolling to a stop in the middle of the road. I’d nearly been run over by my own car and had a tire track on the tail of my overcoat and a black scuff on my forearm to prove it. Now, lying on the frozen pavement with only one shoe, torn stockings, and scraped knees, I watched the taillights recede into the white distance, a blowing mist of snow swirling behind my warm car as it disappeared. I dusted myself off and, sitting on my frozen rear end, cursed the little JD who had quizzed me about my driving, asked me the make and model of my car, then stolen it out from under me as if performing a tablecloth trick.

It was bitter cold. I hadn’t seen so much as a barn since driving away from the reform school, let alone a house or a filling station. And the school was at least three miles back. I struggled to my feet and examined the sorry state of my person: bloodied knees soaking through sagging, torn stockings; white gloves tattered and soiled with slush, about a shovelful of which had been forced down my collar as the car dragged me and was now melting down my back; and one broken shoe in the middle of the road some sixty feet behind me. I limped and hopped back down the road to retrieve the shoe, soaking my foot in the process. Then I started to worry about frostbite. I rubbed my right foot furiously, but the sopping stocking meant my efforts were futile. Now my gloves were wet, and my fingers stung from the cold. I sat down beside the road and cursed Joey Figlio.

I huddled in my overcoat for warmth, pulling my head and feet inside, as I debated whether to wait where I sat or hobble three miles ahead to Route 5 and potential salvation. Either way, it was even money that I would die where I sat or somewhere further on up the road. For, make no mistake, if the cavalry didn’t arrive soon, I would freeze to death with one shoe on and one shoe off. My greatest regret was that I wouldn’t be able to drag Joey Figlio to hell with me. I tucked my chin into my chest and shivered, my rear end already turning numb. And then I heard the crunch of rubber tires on frozen snow and the crackle of a two-way radio.

I poked my head out of my coat to see the headlights of a sheriff’s cruiser staring dumbly at me from fifteen feet away. The door popped open, and Stan Pulaski stepped out looking like Randolph Scott climbing off his horse.

“Ellie!” he called once he’d recognized me. “What happened to you?”

I struggled to my feet and limped toward him. He made a move to receive me in his arms, but I tacked to the left and the passenger-side door of his cruiser instead. In a trice, I was inside the humming car, propping my right foot against the heat vent on the floor for warmth.

“What the heck happened?” asked Stan once he’d joined me inside the car.

“God . . . damn . . . Joey . . . Figlio . . . stole . . . my . . . car,” I chattered. “He’s got a ten-minute head start. Go!”

Stan threw the car into gear and swerved into the road, gaining speed as he floored it.

“Sheriff Olney was right to have me follow you,” said Stan, eyes fixed on the straight, white road. “He told you to stay away from Fulton.”

“Never mind that,” I said. “Get on the radio and tell Frank to meet us at the junior high school.”

Stan threw a quick look at me before shifting his attention back to the slippery road. “The junior high? What for?”

“Joey Figlio’s going to kill a music teacher named Mr. Russell if Frank doesn’t get there first.”

Stan plucked the mic from its perch and radioed headquarters. Pat Halvey answered, chewing on something, and Stan started to explain in cop-talk that a perp was heading south on Kendall Road in a stolen vehicle. I’d heard enough and snatched the mic from his hand.

“Pat, this is Ellie Stone. Put Frank on the horn now!” I said.

After a few moments, the sheriff’s booming voice came over the radio.

“What the hell’s going on, Ellie?”

I didn’t have time to explain about my car. I told him to get down to the junior high school before a fifteen-year-old juvenile delinquent killed a music teacher with a butter knife. Frank tried to ask for clarification, but I assured him a man would be dead within twenty minutes if he didn’t move fast.

I replaced the mic in its cradle just as Stan veered onto Route 5 and hit the gas. My right foot was still freezing, despite the heater’s best efforts. Stan’s eyes were still fixed on the road, so I shimmied down in the seat, raised my skirt to mid-thigh, and rolled the right stocking down and off my leg. Then I removed the left one and tossed them both to the floor. Sure enough, Stan stole a glimpse and nearly drove off the road.

“I need a favor from you,” I said to Stan as I examined the scrapes on my knees. Not too bad. They looked worse than they were.

“Anything for you, Ellie,” he said, glancing again at my bare legs.

“When we get to the junior high, give me your gun. I’m going to shoot Joey Figlio between the eyes.”

We skidded to a stop in front of the junior high school fifteen minutes later. Three county cruisers and four city black-and-whites surrounded the building’s exits. My red-and-black Dodge was sitting innocently next to the main entrance on Division Street, the driver’s side door opened wide with four cops milling about, doing little more than freezing in the cold.

“I see you’ve found my car,” I said to be friendly. They just stared at me quizzically. “The kid stole my car,” I explained. “This is it. I’d like to take it when I’ve finished here.”

“You’ll have to talk to the chief, Miss Stone,” said one of the men in blue. I’d seen him a few times before. Tall and nice looking. I’ve got a thing for cops.

“You know my name?” I asked.

He smiled. “Your press card is in the glove box.”

Inside the school, I found Frank Olney and Patrick Finn, New Holland police chief, holed up with the ancient principal, Clarence Endicott, Louis Brossard, and a fifth man I didn’t know. Frank acknowledged me from across the room with a short nod then turned his attention back to the conference. I was waiting quietly near the door for the huddle to break, when the secretary, Mrs. Worth, motioned for me to join her at her desk.

“Who’s the man with the mussed hair in the houndstooth jacket?” I asked.

“That’s Mr. Russell,” she said. “Ted Russell, the music teacher Joey Figlio attacked.”

“Where’s Joey now?” I asked, wanting to chain him to my car’s bumper and drag him through the ice and snow back to the Fulton Reform School for Boys.

“Got away. But not before he tackled Mr. Russell in the hallway and tried to slit his throat. He would have, too. Mr. Brossard arrived just in time.”

“Oh, my, that’s what I feared he’d do. Was Mr. Russell injured?”

“No,” she said, dismissing my concern with a wave of her hand. “Mr. Brossard pulled Joey off before he could do any real harm. Managed to slice Mr. Russell’s tie in half, though.”

“I thought he looked a little too casual for a teacher. Any idea why Joey wanted to kill him?” I asked, wondering if others shared Joey’s suspicions about him.

She almost said something then held back. I smiled to encourage her, but she wouldn’t say.

“I know about Mr. Russell and Darleen,” I whispered.

Mrs. Worth adjusted her glasses as she pretended to read a sheet of paper she’d just taken from the Ditto machine. The smell of volatile solvent gave me an almost Proustian nostalgia for my school days. I inhaled deeply and was transported back to a sixth-grade social-studies test and Mrs. Jelkin’s permanent wave and black, laced Oxfords.

“Miss Stone,” whispered Mrs. Worth, interrupting my memory. “Everyone has heard that rumor.”

Suddenly Chief Finn, red face, white hair, and bushy eyebrows, noticed me and tried to shoo me away, insisting I had no business there. Frank informed him in his world-weary way that I was there to see him.

“What do you want with her?” asked Finn, a barrel-chested Irishman in a tight, blue pinstriped suit.

“She’s the one who called us,” said Frank. “If she hadn’t, you’d have a homicide on your hands, Finn. I phoned the school as soon as I heard, and the assistant principal saved Russell’s life. So you can thank me and her for doing your job for you.”

“Is she the gal from the newspaper? Artie Short told me about her,” said Finn, glaring in my direction. Then to me: “Hey, sweetie, next time try keeping track of your car, will you? Look at the trouble you caused us.”