No Stone Unturned
Authors: James W. Ziskin
Published 2014 by Seventh Street Books
®
, an imprint of Prometheus Books
No Stone Unturned.
Copyright © 2014 by James W. Ziskin. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
The characters, organizations, companies, products, and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, or organizations or companies, currently or previously existing, or existing product names is coincidental and is not intended by the author.
Cover image © helene cyr/Media Bakery
Cover design by Jacqueline Nasso Cooke
Inquiries should be addressed to
Seventh Street Books
59 John Glenn Drive
Amherst, New York 14228
VOICE: 716–691–0133
FAX: 716–691–0137
18 17 16 15 14 5 4 3 2 1
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Ziskin, James W., 1960–
No stone unturned : an Ellie Stone mystery / James W. Ziskin.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-61614-883-6 (pbk.) — ISBN 978-1-61614-884-3 (ebook)
1. Women journalists—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3626.I83N73 2014
813’.6—dc23
2013047666
Printed in the United States of America
Styx & Stone
To Lakshmi
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1960
The story I heard was that Fast Jack Donovan was chasing a rabbit through the woods when he tripped in the wet leaves. As he fell on his shotgun, the muzzle peeked out from under him and blasted a volley of lead and powder past his right ear. He twisted on the ground for a while, kicking and swearing until the ringing in his ear had faded. Then he picked himself up, scraped a layer of muck off his brand-new hunting jacket, and saw the crop of blonde hair half-buried in the mud.
It was just turning dark. I was driving myself home from a date: a Saturday matinee of
BUtterfield 8
with an eager young bank clerk of my acquaintance. For weeks, we’d been flirting through the teller’s window as he scribbled entries into my passbook and dealt me my withdrawals with the panache of a seasoned croupier. He seemed fun, and I thought he might have potential. But I never imagined that an innocent movie (well, not so innocent) would lead to his pinning me on the sofa for a count of three. The wrestling was a disappointment, at least for me. As I buttoned my blouse, I swore to myself there would be no rematch. And of course I would have to change banks.
I turned north and started to climb Market Hill, just as one of those Mitch Miller sing-alongs came on the radio. I nearly broke the knob switching it off and turned up the police scanner instead. A dispatch was in progress: a body had been found in Wentworth’s Woods, near Route 40, north of Wilkens Corners Road.
In all my time in New Holland—nearly three years—the most exciting event I had covered for the
Republic
was a mysterious trash-can fire in front of Tesoro’s Pharmacy on East Main Street. The boredom had just about worn me down, and not even the odd afternoon of heavy breathing with bank clerks, lawyers, or junior editors made any of it seem worthwhile. My life was grinding by like a glacier inching down a mountainside. I was ready to leave the bars, bowling alleys, and empty knitting mills behind. Abandon this forsaken backwater like an unwanted child and go back to New York to prove my late father right once and for all—that I was wasting my time writing filler and shooting photographs for a small, upstate daily that didn’t appreciate me.
My father’s death in January was a recent wound, made all the more tragic by our long, unresolved estrangement, now fossilized and permanent. Abraham Stone, celebrated Dante scholar and professor of comparative literature, had challenged me to show him one significant piece I’d written for the paper, and when I couldn’t, we essentially stopped speaking. We’d had little to share anyway, especially with my mother and brother gone. Elijah was killed on his motorcycle in June of 1957, and my mother succumbed to cancer three months later. My father and I were left alone, two survivors uncertain and unsympathetic of each other, thrown together without the option. And now he, too, was dead.
Furthermore, my position at the paper was going nowhere fast. Artie Short, publisher of the
New Holland Republic
, didn’t like the idea of a girl reporter and hated the sight of me to boot. Yet, somehow, I hadn’t found the words to tell Charlie Reese, my editor, that I couldn’t stand one more day in New Holland. It was five thirty on a cold Saturday afternoon, two days after Thanksgiving, and I was getting the feeling I’d be sticking around just a bit longer.
The woods were crawling with cops: New Holland police, state troopers, and county deputies. Even Big Frank Olney, sheriff of Montgomery County, had managed to pry himself out of his swivel chair to investigate the biggest crime of his tenure. When I pushed through the cordon, Doc Peruso, the county coroner, was pulling a sheet over the naked body.
“Hey, Eleonora,” called Olney. “Our guy’s in Schenectady. Can you take the pictures?”
“Sure, Frank,” I said, unsnapping my Leica, knowing he called me that just to gall me. Everyone knew I went by Ellie. “What happened here?”
“Murder,” said Peruso. “Not sure how long she’s been dead; maybe twenty-four hours. I’ll know later if she’s been raped. And here’s your headline, young lady: that’s Judge Shaw’s girl under the sheet.”
“Judge Shaw?” I gulped. “As in the Shaw Knitting Mills Shaws?”
“That’s off the record,” said Olney. “We don’t have any positive ID.”
“I’ve been their family physician for twenty-five years,” said Peruso. “That’s Jordan Shaw, all right.”
“Off the record, please, Ellie,” repeated the sheriff, nicer than he’d ever been in a nonelection year. “We haven’t raised Judge Shaw yet.”
“I’ll hold off on the ID,” I said, plugging a flashbulb into the reflector. “Can you move these guys back while I take the pictures? No need to put on a show.”
Olney ordered the cordon to retreat twenty yards, and Fred Peruso turned back the sheet. I’d seen a few dead bodies before, but none so fresh or so young. I’d never met or even seen Jordan Shaw before, which I’m sure made photographing her corpse a little easier. They don’t teach you this stuff at the Columbia School of Journalism.
“Pretty girl,” I said to Peruso. That was an understatement, even with the mud smeared over her bare, white skin. “How old was she?”
“Twenty-one. Just back from school in Boston for the holiday.”
“You said her name was Jordan?” I asked. “Kind of an unusual name for a girl, isn’t it?”
“Family name,” said Peruso, puffing on his pipe. “The judge’s grandmother was one of the Saratoga Springs Jordans.”
“Any idea of the cause of death?”
“Look at her,” he said. “I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count.”
Her neck was indeed twisted into a difficult and, apparently, fatal angle. I knelt down next to the body and snapped a tight shot of her colorless face.
“Can I touch her?” I asked. Peruso nodded, relighting his pipe in the cool breeze. Frank Olney had no objections. My boldness surprised me. “Doctor, what’s this mark on her pelvis?”