No Stone Unturned (33 page)

“And he’s no Galatea,” I answered.

She smiled touché. “Oh, but that’s right, your father was a famous professor of literature.”

I felt a sharp pain stab me in the right temple. “Could we please not talk about him?” I asked.

“As you wish,” she sniffed. “Of course, you don’t have the same qualms about discussing my murdered daughter.”

“Mrs. Shaw, I’m very sorry for Jordan and your loss, but this is not a lark for me. Nor is it some mixed-up attempt to come to grips with my father’s murder or my personal bereavement. I’m here to help find Jordan’s killer.”

Audrey Shaw smiled knowingly at me. It was a cruel, wicked smile, approaching delight. “Miss Stone, you don’t need to explain anything to me. Only you can know your true motivations.”

“May we continue?” I asked, terrified to move a muscle, lest the swollen tear in my left eye overflow the lower lid. I resisted, didn’t blink for nearly a half minute before she looked away and stood to pour herself a drink.

“Something for you?” she asked. “I’ve heard you do well with whiskey. Or is that an off-limits topic as well?”

“My drinking is fair game,” I said, relishing the prospect of a short one.

For all the practiced tricks and affectations, Audrey Shaw was a shattered woman. Sharp and cunning, to be sure, but damaged and in desperate need to compensate for the death of her daughter. Wounding others must have given her some kind of wicked respite from her pain. She acted the ice queen, but under the façade, a deep, aching agony lurked, and it showed each time she forgot herself.

“This Greg Hewert,” I began, savoring the first sting of the judge’s Chivas Regal, “Franny Bartolo told me that he and Jordan saw each other during their senior year in high school.”

“That’s a lie,” she said adamantly. “Jordan and Greg were fast friends. Nothing more, I assure you.”

“Franny and Tommy felt otherwise.”

“That’s because they have small minds. Typical of this place. Those two were like brother and sister. I don’t know where Tommy and Franny ever got such an idea.”

“They said it began when the judge’s father was sick, and you and your husband went to New York to visit him. Glenda Whalen saw Greg’s car here late one night.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she huffed. “Harrison went alone on that trip. I stayed home with Jordan. Don’t you think I would have known if she had seen him here? In this very house?”

I didn’t know what to believe. Could I be duped by a dimwit like Franny Bartolo? I doubted it. She obviously believed what she told me about Greg and Jordan. Was Audrey Shaw lying, then? Or just ignorant of her daughter’s scrimmages with the quarterback?

“What about David Jerrold?” I asked. “Did you ever meet him?”

“No, but I knew of him.”

“Why did you tell me you didn’t know his name?”

“I didn’t want my husband to know that I’d concealed Jordan’s behavior from him. Besides, I figured you would find him easily enough. Why else would I have given you that photograph?”

“But the judge said Jordan planned on studying engineering after graduation. Wouldn’t that have been awkward?”

“I assure you it would never have come to that. I work slowly and deliberately, Miss Stone, and I wasn’t about to let that happen.”

“So, what can you tell me about David Jerrold?”

“I discovered their liaison by accident on my last trip to Boston,” she said. The alcohol was loosening her tongue, if not her geniality. “Jordan and I had planned a girls’ weekend, just the two of us. I arrived late Friday afternoon, and after tea at the Ritz-Carlton, we walked to her apartment on Marlborough Street. When I went to hang a skirt and blouse in her closet, I came across two pairs of men’s slacks and three button-down shirts. I confronted Jordan, and we had it out.”

“What did she say?”

“She couldn’t very well deny it, and in the end she told me all about him.”

I fixed my stare on Audrey Shaw, urging her silently to tell me more. Perhaps it was the Scotch talking, but she told me more about her daughter’s relationship with David Jerrold than I ever would have expected from her.

“Jordan explained how they had met: at an orientation meeting for the India trip. He was some kind of expert, it seems. She said he charmed her with his good looks and posh English accent. I was concerned, of course, but she said he was the man she was going to marry.”

“Didn’t you know he was married already?”

Audrey Shaw’s nostrils flared. “Jordan didn’t mention it that day. I found out the following afternoon when her friend Jeffrey met us for lunch. While Jordan was away from the table, he told me Jerrold was married and had a son.”

Audrey Shaw took a taste of her Scotch and slipped another cigarette between her lips. “I decided to handle the matter myself, without Jordan’s knowledge, since she’d already misled me once. It was obvious that this man was abusing his position of authority to take advantage of the romantic inclinations of a young girl.”

“What did you do?”

“I phoned him and told him to break it off with Jordan. I threatened to tell his wife.”

“Did that work?” I asked, remembering the letter I’d stolen.

“He put on a fine performance, protesting his innocence. He said he had no idea what I was talking about, that Jordan was just a student he had seen around the department. I didn’t believe him, of course, and promised to go through with my threat if he ever saw Jordan again.”

“What date was that?”

“Saturday. It must have been the 29th of October,” she said.

“But Jerrold didn’t break off with Jordan until two weeks later.”

“I wonder how you find out these things,” she said. “I received a phone call from Jeffrey Nichols about two weeks later, on November 12th. I remember the date because it was Harrison’s birthday, and we were having drinks, right where we’re sitting now, before leaving for dinner with Dr. Terrell and his wife, next door. Jeffrey thought I might be interested to know that David Jerrold and Jordan were having a romantic dinner in a little restaurant in the North End.”

“I see.”

“It took all my strength to contain my fury. I couldn’t very well make a scene that night; we were expected at the Terrells’. But first thing in the morning I phoned Jerrold’s wife and told her everything, except Jordan’s name of course. I didn’t want to blacken my own daughter’s name.”

“How did the wife react?”

“She was speechless.”

I knew how she’d reacted: she’d flown into a jealous rage, searched her husband’s belongings for clues, and found the love note from Jordan in his jacket. Then she threatened to leave Jerrold and take their son with her. He broke things off with Jordan, but like a greedy weasel scared off by the barnyard dog, he couldn’t resist raiding the chicken coop after a couple of weeks had passed. Jerrold had never wanted to dump Jordan; my bet was that he was in love, or obsessed with her, up until the very night she was murdered. And that obsession may have played a part in her death.

When I finally stood to take my leave of Audrey Shaw, it was nearly five thirty. We had polished off the better part of a bottle of Chivas, so I was feeling no pain. Mrs. Shaw didn’t get out of her chair. She stared off at the wall at nothing in particular and ignored my farewell. She slumped into a deep melancholy, the one she’d been so expert in hiding, and I went to let myself out.

“Miss Stone?” It was Judge Shaw in the foyer, hanging his hat and coat in the closet. “What are you doing here? What’s going on?”

“I was talking with your wife,” I said, feeling quite unwelcome.

“Have you been drinking?” he asked. “Already?” When I didn’t answer, he shook his head. “What happened to your face? You look terrible.”

I explained. Car accident.

“Were you drinking then, too?”

“No, sir,” I said softly.

“Well?” he asked. “Do you have any news for me? How is your investigation coming along?”

“I’ve hit a roadblock, sir.”

He ran a peevish hand through his silver hair. “Perhaps if you put in the same effort as you did for your father’s case . . .”

That was a haymaker. I put my head down and walked purposefully out of his house. I had just yanked open the car door when he caught up to me.

“Miss Stone, stop! You can’t run off like that.”

“Why not?” I shrieked, and he slammed the car door shut. I huffed and puffed in the cold night air, fed up with the digs he and his wife had doled out concerning my father. “What do I owe you?”

The judge was surprised to see my anger, and he stammered some words of apology. I glared at him, and he turned away from my prying stare. Then he sighed and continued in a measured voice.

“You must understand my disappointment, Miss Stone. I was hoping for better results by now.”

I circled around him to fix my eyes on his. Mine, blackened and bloodshot; his, steely gray in silent, lonely agony.

He seemed to be weighing a difficult question.

“Are you Jewish?” he asked finally.

“What?”

My wife said that you are Jewish,” he said. “Is that true? Are you Jewish?”

I didn’t know what to say and uttered something incredibly stupid: “Not so you’d notice.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, I don’t go to temple,” I said. “Why would you ask me that? Does it matter?”

He shook his head and looked away. “No, it doesn’t matter. I just wanted to know.”

“Know what?”

“Does your religion give you any . . . solace, comfort?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Neither does mine,” he mumbled.

“Do you want to talk about it, sir?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “This is something I must cope with by myself. Alone.”

“But . . .”

“No!” he shouted.

I fumbled through my notes in the phone booth at Fiorello’s, searching for David Jerrold’s phone number. His wife answered, and I identified myself as a reporter investigating the Tufts murders.

“My husband isn’t home,” she said, though I knew she was lying.

“Actually, I wanted to speak to you, Mrs. Jerrold,” I said, still a little drunk from my cocktails with Audrey Shaw.

“Me?” she asked. “I don’t know anything about those murders; I never even met those girls.”

“True enough,” I said. “But one of them knew your husband.”

There was an icy pause. “What are you implying?”

“You may not have known Jordan Shaw, Mrs. Jerrold, but I believe you spoke to her mother about three weeks ago.”

More silence.

“What do you want?”

“I’m trying to find a killer.”

“Are you saying that my husband is involved in these killings?”

Before I could answer, David Jerrold wrenched the phone from his wife’s hand.

“Damn you! What’s the meaning of phoning my wife and spreading your despicable accusations?”

“I asked you for help once, and you stonewalled me,” I said, emboldened by the whiskey. “I called your wife because I have new information that you concealed from me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“First of all, you denied being involved with Jordan Shaw.”

Jerrold hesitated a moment; his wife was surely standing beside him, hanging on his every word. He spoke carefully: “What else could I have done?”

“All right,” I conceded. “But Audrey Shaw threatened to tell your wife everything if you didn’t break it off with Jordan, and ultimately she did. Why were you afraid of your wife finding out about Jordan from me when she already knew?”

Again Jerrold chose his words wisely. “It’s only natural to avoid reminders of such unpleasant topics,” he said, and I could hear him sweating. “Listen, Miss Stone. Why can’t you just leave us alone?”

“That would suit you just fine,” I said. “Jordan Shaw and Virginia White are dead. Tragic, sure, but the end of the story. Well, not exactly. You see, while you’ve been holed up at home, somebody’s tried to kill me, too. Cut my brakes and ransacked my apartment.”

“What do you want from me, damn it!”

I borrowed a line from my midnight caller: “Does
butt out
mean anything to you?”

There was a pause, then he cleared his throat. “Look,” he whispered, “I don’t know what your cryptic message means, but I did not try to kill you. I’m sorry for your trouble, but can’t you leave me be? I know nothing of this affair.”

“Someone is trying to kill me,” I said. “Give me a hand, here.”

“If you fear for your life, Miss Stone, I suggest you follow your own advice and butt out. You’ll soon be left alone,” and he hung up.