Stone Cold Dead (27 page)

“It
is
you!” a voice startled me from behind. “I knew you’d come.”

“Frankie,” I said. “You nearly scared me to death.”

“I could never do that, Ellie. I’m in love with you.”

“Stop it, Frankie. You’re not in love with me. And I’m not here to see you. I came about Joey.”

“You’re not in love with him, are you?” he asked. “That’s what he’s been telling everyone ever since he got back. ‘I’m in love with Joey Figlio,’” he said in a falsetto voice and made an accompanying cross-eyed, palsied gesture to indicate some form of besotted infatuation. I couldn’t be sure if the pantomime was meant to ape Joey or me.

“I’m not in love with him or you, Frankie,” I said, and that appeased him.

“Well, good,” he said. “I don’t mind if you don’t know you love me yet, but if you were in love with him, I’d kill that backstabbing son of bitch, I swear it. I’d kill him for you.”

“Cool your jets, space cadet,” I said. “And mind your language. You’re not killing anybody. Besides, Joey has bigger worries than threats from you just now. The sheriff's on his way, probably to arrest him on suspicion of Darleen Hicks’s murder.”

“I doubt it,” he said, staring into my eyes. “Joey lit out about an hour ago. Said this place wasn’t going to stop him from slitting that teacher’s throat.”

“One of the boys told Joey that Miss Stone was here talking to me,” Dienst said to Frank Olney. We were all three sitting in the principal’s office, reviewing the events of the past two hours. “That spooked him, the boy said. Joey suspected her visit somehow spelled bad news for him, and he escaped the school grounds.”

“Check the backseat of my car,” I said, and Frank glowered at me.

“This isn’t the time for humor, Ellie,” he said.

“Who’s joking? Check the backseat of my car. I’m not leaving here until someone assures me he’s not lying in wait for me.”

“The thermos looks like it was Darleen’s,” said Frank, ignoring my pleas. “I’ve sent a deputy over to the Metzger place with it for the mother to confirm, but I think it’s the one. Now we’re going to have to locate this Joey Figlio. Any idea where he might run?”

Dienst shrugged. “His parents’ house, perhaps?”

“He doesn’t get along with his father,” I volunteered. “Although he is close to his mother. But I doubt he’ll go there. Too obvious.”

“Then where do you think we should look?” asked Frank.

“I already told you. My car.”

“Okay,” said Frank, turning back to Dr. Dienst. “We’ll inspect Miss Stone’s car then we’ll go from there. We know he’s after the teacher, Russell, so we’ll post a deputy at the junior high and at his house in Cranesville. Joey’s not the smartest criminal I’ve come across. Maybe we’ll nab him sooner rather than later.”

“And you promised to watch my place,” I said to admonish him. “Last Sunday, remember?”

“Yes, we’ll make sure you’re safe,” said Frank with impatience. “I’ve already asked Chief Finn if his boys could help, and he said he’d police his own town.”

“That’s comforting,” I said.

“Take it easy. He might be a goon, but he’s not going to put up with trouble in his backyard. He’ll gripe about it and make a show about not doing anything, but I guarantee the city police are keeping an eye on you.”

Feeling no more confident of my safety, I let it go. Frank called the DA, the Thin Man, Don Czerulniak, to ask for some advice. Don suggested questioning the boy if he was found, but not to arrest him yet.

“Prove to me that she’s dead,” Don told Frank, “and find this little delinquent. Then we’ll talk about an arrest.”

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 1961

The temperatures continued to defy the season, with the mercury reaching fifty-six degrees on the giant thermometer outside the Mohawk Savings Bank. I had an 8:30 meeting with Charlie Reese to review some stories he’d assigned me, including the one on Teddy J. There was a home game Friday night, which I was scheduled to cover, and I promised I’d drop in on a practice before then to finish up the feature.

“There’s one more thing I wanted to tell you, Ellie,” Charlie said, adjusting himself in his seat. “Artie Short managed to wire George and intercept him at St. Louis. He’ll be back late tomorrow night.”

“Well, we knew it was too good to last,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

“It sure was a lucky thing that you didn’t publish that story on the bus ticket,” he said, and I nodded. “Otherwise, it might have been you on that bus to Arizona.”

Charlie stared at me for a long while, holding my gaze with his. I think he wanted to accuse me of concealing information, but he didn’t dare. I thought about my pact with Frank Olney, that we’d agreed to keep the unused ticket and the love note from Ted Russell secret for the time being. But now I was in danger of missing my own scoop. I wasn’t listening to Charlie suddenly but was planning my discussion with the sheriff: the one where I would tell him I needed to publish my story whether he wanted me to or not. I had a job to do, just as he did, and I hoped my decision wouldn’t damage our relationship; I needed the sheriff on my side.

“Ellie?” asked Charlie, pulling me back into the room.

“Yes?”

“I said fine. You don’t have to cover the Laundromat ribbon-cutting. I’ll find someone else. But finish up that Teddy J. story for me. It’ll help keep Short off my back.” He looked me in the eye again. “And yours.”

“I’ve already blown the entire year’s snow budget on this thing,” grumbled Frank Olney. “And we haven’t towed off even a quarter of the stuff.”

I was in his office, a little past ten, sipping a cup of tea across the table from him.

“You haven’t found any trace of her there?” I asked.

“We recovered a pair of gloves in the snow last night,” he said. “Dark-blue wool gloves. Darleen’s mother says they’re hers. The father’s not sure.”

“That’s promising, then, isn’t it? The lunch box and the gloves in the same place.”

“Not exactly,” he frowned and rubbed his bald head. “The gloves were all the way over on the other side of the hills. Near the edge of the clearing just inside the woods.”

I thought of Gus Arnold. It was one thing to say you hadn’t seen anything, but a little hard to believe when the girl’s gloves turn up about twenty-five yards from where you tossed your empty bottle of rye.

“Anyways,” continued the sheriff, “I’m not convinced the gloves are hers. And maybe she lost them there weeks earlier. There’s no way to know if we don’t find the body.”

“Then you’re sure she’s dead?” I asked.

He looked at me pointedly. “That girl’s not coming home.”

I admitted that I thought he was right.

“And that damn Marv Kenner, the county supervisor, is making noise about the money I’m wasting carting away the snow. It’s no secret his son Ernie is thinking of running against me next year.”

“Sorry, Frank,” I shrugged. “Maybe the snow will all melt before you haul it away.”

“Not funny,” he frowned. “If we don’t find that girl, the taxpayers are going to want to know why their roads aren’t plowed.”

“So what do you think?” I asked. “If Darleen Hicks isn’t buried in the snow, where is she?”

“I don’t know, but I sure wish she’d run off after all.” he said.

“But, of course, the unused bus ticket ruins that hope.” I was trying to steer the conversation to my big scoop, but Frank wasn’t biting. “Speaking of that,” I said. “It’s been three days since we found the ticket, hasn’t it?”

Frank grunted.

“I’ve been thinking about what we discussed.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, since you’ve found Darleen’s lunch box, I thought there’s no longer any need to hide the story about the bus ticket. And then there’s the note that was inside. And the love letter, too.”

“You haven’t even seen the note,” he said. “You can’t publish a story about evidence you haven’t seen. And to tell you the truth, I’m keeping the bus ticket in reserve. I’ve got someone in mind and was hoping to catch him with it.”

“But you’ve got Joey Figlio,” I said. “It looks as if he might be the one. He had her thermos, didn’t he?”

“He says she gave it to him for his breakfast in the morning
before
she left for school,” said Frank. “I thought we had an agreement, Ellie. I really don’t want this out before next week.”

We stared at each other for several long, uncomfortable beats.

“Frank, I wouldn’t ask, but I need this story now. I almost lost my job Monday. And now George Walsh is heading back from his wild-goose chase. He’d like nothing better than to take this story away from me. I have to go to print with this, Frank. This is my career.”

He shook his head slowly. “Is your career more important than catching the guy who did this?” he asked.

“Frank, please try to see my side. This means a lot to me.”

We’d reached an impasse. Frank folded his hands together and bowed his head. He looked hurt, and I struggled with my remorse for letting down a friend and the conviction that I was the one being sacrificed.

“You’re going to do what you want, no matter what I say,” he said. “I can’t stop you.”

I leFt the sheriff's office without saying goodbye to Pat Halvey, who stared dumbly after me as I rushed by him on the way to my car. Now the rain had started. A heavy, wet rain that washed the melting snow from the edges of the road into a thick slush, clogging the gutters and drenching the sidewalks. Pedestrians braved the rain at their own peril, especially if I drove past them; I wasn’t slowing for anyone, and the plumes of sludge I sprayed soaked them head to toe. I even splashed a cyclist then caught sight of him in my rearview mirror losing his balance and plunging face first into a giant puddle. Well, what was he doing riding a bike in that weather anyhow?

My chest tightened as I reran the scene with Frank in my mind. I rubbed my eyes with one hand and steered the car with the other. Then I wiped the foggy windshield, nearly opaque from the muggy rain and my own body heat, smearing streaks of moisture across my view. And I hit a trash can on the side of the road. Not hard enough to damage the car, but the garbage can leapt through the air nonetheless and spat its contents onto someone’s slushy lawn. Then the cherry top lit up in my rearview mirror.

“Is everything all right, miss?” asked the New Holland cop as he leaned in the window, dripping rain on my shoulder.

“Yes, officer,” I said, recognizing him as one of the heels who’d laughed the hardest when Chief Finn called me a “Jew girl” exactly one week earlier. “I’m afraid I bumped a trash can.”

“License, please,” he said, standing up and surveying the street as if it belonged to him.

He took my license, retreated to the cover of his patrol car a few feet behind mine, and sat there for at least twenty minutes. I wanted to climb out and ask him to hurry things up, but the rain was really coming down. A group of bystanders collected, standing beneath their umbrellas to watch my humiliation, and I was thankful for the fogged-up windows and the screen they provided.

Finally, there was a tap at my window, and I hurriedly rolled it down. The cop handed me back my driver’s license and told me I’d have to come with him to the station.

“What?” I asked. “Why?”

“Suspicion of drunken driving,” he said.