No Stone Unturned (16 page)

“Yes, I knew that,” I said, already searching for an excuse to close the conversation. “Well, thanks anyway, Benny, I . . .”

“Wait a minute, Ellie. Don’t you want to know about her other car?”

I had forgotten about the green Pontiac woody I’d seen parked behind the motel. Benny told me it was a 1946 station wagon, registration expired in April 1960. The title actually named Victor Trent of R. D. 40 as the owner, but he had been dead for several years. I had a feeling if I could find the wagon, I’d find Julio.

Tedesco’s Grill served the best Italian bar food in the city. From standard fare, like ziti and meat sauce, to six-inch-thick meatball and roast-beef sandwiches, you got your money’s worth. But more than anything else, Tedesco’s was known for its pizza, and late Tuesday afternoon I was sitting at the dark bar in a gray skirt and a black jacket, waiting for a small mushroom-and-sausage pie.

“Look who’s here,” said Jimmy Tedesco, dropping a double Dewar’s I hadn’t ordered on the bar before me. “World-famous reporter Eleonora Stone.” The crowd cheered and jeered me good-naturedly, and I blushed. “You’re all over the news,” he continued. “Now that you’re a big shot, you tool around town all dolled up like this?”

“Going to a wake.”

“Yeah? Who died?”

“Don’t you read the papers?” I asked. “Oh, that’s right, Jimmy, you can’t read.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I read the papers. How would you like some special garnish on your pizza?”

After twenty minutes and another Scotch, I called Jimmy over to ask a question: “Who’s that guy over by the jukebox?”

“That’s Greg something-or-other,” he said. “Used to play quarterback for the high school team.”

“He’s been looking at me since I came in.”

“It’s a free country, Ellie,” he said. “And by the way, every guy in here stares at you whenever you come in, including me.” He winked and slapped a shot glass upside-down on the bar in front me, signifying I had a drink coming on the house.

Jimmy wiped his hands on his apron and called out to the young man by the jukebox: “Hey, you! Quit staring at the lady. You’re making her nervous.”

A few minutes later, once I’d recovered from the embarrassment, I felt a tap on my shoulder. A tall young woman in her early twenties stood before me in the dim light. She was wearing a sneer and a black dress.

“You’re that girl from the paper, aren’t you? Remember me?”

“Glenda Whalen,” I said. “Hello . . .”

The next thing I remember was Jimmy Tedesco dabbing my swollen lip with a wet towel. The back of my head was pounding, and I realized I was on the floor amid a forest of barstool legs.

“What happened?” I stammered, my mouth sticky with the taste of blood.

“That girl decked you,” said Jimmy, a touch more amused than I would have liked.

“What for?” I tried to get up, but Jimmy restrained me.

“Hold your horses, Ellie,” he said. “You bumped your head pretty good on the bar. Just stay there for a few minutes till you get your wits back.”

“But your floor’s so dirty, Jimmy,” I mumbled.

He laughed. “I guess you’re feeling okay, then. But last night Billy Valicki puked right where you’re resting your head.”

“Why did she hit me?” I asked, trying to gather up my hair and keep it off the floor.

“I was just kidding about Billy Valicki puking on the floor,” he said, brushing my hand away from my hair. “Relax and take it easy, I said. As for that girl, she said something about Jordan Shaw. Something about the Mohawk Motel.”

“Where is she? I want to talk to her.”

Jimmy laughed. “You better stay away from her, Ellie. We had to throw her out of here; she was going to beat you to a pulp. Best cat fight we’ve seen in here in years. Short, but good.”

“What do you mean
was
going to beat me to a pulp? I’d say she did a pretty good job.”

“Hell, she only hit you once. Like Khrushchev banging his shoe on the table, only the table was your face.”

A couple of patrons helped Jimmy lift me to my feet, and a few minutes later I was steady enough to hold myself up. I washed down a couple of aspirins with some cold water and waited for my head to stop spinning. A New Holland police officer showed up and tried to convince me to press charges. There were plenty of witnesses, but I declined.

“Suit yourself,” said the officer. “But when she comes back looking for you, don’t blame the cops.”

“I’ll take my chances,” I said, putting on my overcoat.

“And take your pizza while you’re at it,” said Jimmy, handing me a cardboard parcel.

I took the pizza—no charge—and drove to O’Connor’s Funeral Home on Division Street. My altercation with Glenda Whalen had made me late, and, as a result, there were no convenient parking spots. The whole town had turned out for the wake, it seemed, and I had to leave my car three blocks away. Normally I wouldn’t have minded, but I hadn’t quite regained my land legs. Even worse was bending over to check for oil spots under every car around the funeral home. And I didn’t know the first thing about engines and leaking oil. If the car was dripping slowly, there might not be any telltale spots for hours to come. But I had nothing else to go on, so I stooped. And stooped. I didn’t find the one I was looking for.

The funeral parlor overflowed with New Holland’s elite and curious, and it hummed with rumor and speculation about the girl in the open coffin. The mourners streamed in, signed the guestbook, and set their eyes on the shattered parents. The judge’s wife, in a black silk dress, wore a veil to obscure her eyes. She was composed, indeed statuesque, to a point far beyond what I had been led to expect, and it was clear she was no longer under sedation. The judge sat straight and dignified next to his wife, but his stony expression warded off most people. Only the bravest approached the couple to offer condolences, and none got any response beyond a sober nod. After witnessing a few of these attempts, the funeral director stationed himself between the Shaws and the coffin to repel all but a select few friends and local VIPs.

I took up a discreet position near some flowers along the wall; I wanted to observe, but not at the cost of disrupting the solemnity of the occasion. The assembly represented a who’s who of New Holland society, and I had to struggle to keep my foggy head clear to remember them all. Mayor Chester looked stiff in a black overcoat and matching fedora; Montgomery County DA Don Czerulniak, known affectionately to the boys in the newsroom as the Thin Man, was in somber consultation with Doc Peruso; Frank Olney stood against a pillar in the back, sweating puddles in a wrinkled shirt, short tie, and tight jacket. I compiled the list in my head: two dozen lawyers; seven judges, including three from the Third Appellate Division in Albany; all twelve city aldermen; the county supervisor, Gabe Fletcher; Herbert Keith, principal of W. T. Finch High; teachers; clergy—Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, and Jewish; doctors; restaurateurs; merchants; and on and on. Mrs. Lorraine Valeska, doyenne of New Holland’s piano teachers, hobbled in behind a cane and took a place standing against the wall next to Artie Short, who’d found a chair he wasn’t parting with. Eventually, a young man nearby offered her his seat.

New Holland’s gentry was there, all right, but I was more interested in New Holland’s rabble. Where was Pukey Boyle, for instance? There were many young people, former classmates and friends, I suspected, and I wondered if Tom Quint had made the trip back from Rochester. My lip throbbed again when I noticed Glenda Whalen glaring at me from across the hot room. Next to her was the same Greg fellow who had been ogling me at Tedesco’s. He seemed to be undressing me with his eyes. At a wake.

I joined the DA in the adjacent parlor. I had met Don Czerulniak two years earlier when I covered his campaign, and we had remained friendly since, probably because I never once misspelled his name in print.

“Are you working?” he asked.

“Kind of,” I said, looking over my shoulder for Glenda Whalen. “I’m trying to lie low, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I weren’t here.”

“I had a long meeting with Frank Olney today,” said Don, nodding to a constituent across the room. “He wants a murder-one warrant for the Puerto Rican kid.”

“Are you going to get it for him?”

“Not yet. We’re treating him as a material witness for now. We issued a warrant, but I’m a bit more cautious than Frank. I like to go slow and see how things play out.”

“What about the prints they took last night? Any luck?”

“Tomorrow morning,” said Don. “And if his prints turn out to be on that X-acto knife, I’ll have to go along with Frank on the murder-one charge.”

“Do you even have his prints?” I asked.

“In spades. Apparently he painted a fence two days ago and left perfect prints all over the brush. Dried into the paint.”

“Even if the prints match, what’s that prove? His prints are bound to be on that knife just as they were on the paintbrush; he’s Jean Trent’s handyman.”

“That’s a question for a jury. I’m not saying we couldn’t drop the charges later on, but you have to admit, it doesn’t look good for the kid.”

I concurred.

“What happened to your lip?”

“Fell off a barstool.”

“You should take it easy, Ellie,” he said. “I know you can hold your drink, but that doesn’t mean you have to prove it every night.”

“Listen to the pot calling the kettle black.”

The crowd began to dwindle after eight, and I was thinking about leaving myself, when a girl of about twenty-one approached me. Short, with dark hair cut in a bob, she identified herself as Fran Bartolo, formerly Jordan Shaw’s best friend.

“I’ve seen your stories in the paper,” she said. “And I heard them talk about you on the radio. You might be interested in what I know about Jordan.”

“I might,” I said, unsure what to make of this girl. “Try me.”

“Not here,” she said, looking around the room. “I don’t want her friends to see me talking to you.”

So now I was a pariah. I made a quick visual inspection of the room and saw no Glenda Whalen. “Let’s talk here,” I said.

“No; meet me in Gem Cleaners’ parking lot in twenty minutes,” she said and disappeared.

I was in the cloakroom, retrieving my overcoat, when the funeral director’s son, Tim O’Connor, asked me if I was Eleonora Stone. Judge Shaw wanted a word with me. O’Connor escorted me through two doors to a private room, where the judge and his wife were seated on a divan. Mrs. Shaw still looked remote, chin high, back straight, knees together. The judge rose when I came in, offering me no handshake but motioning for me to take a seat instead. O’Connor withdrew. Once we were alone, Judge Shaw mumbled an introduction to his wife, and I offered my condolences. She nodded coolly but said nothing.

“I’ve asked you here, Miss Stone, to share some information that has come to my attention,” he began. “My wife, Audrey, suspects Jordan was involved with a professor from Tufts.”

“What gives her that idea?” I asked.

“Phone calls, letters, bits of conversations overheard . . . Women seem to be more attuned to these signs.”

“Do you know his name?” I asked Mrs. Shaw.

She shook her head and spoke for the first time. “Jordan never told me anything of this relationship,” she said, her voice even and dry. “But last August I noticed Jordan was receiving letters posted in Medford, Massachusetts. The handwriting on the envelopes was always the same, and it was written by a man.”

“No return address?”

“No, but the postage was metered. Tufts.”

“Do you know where these letters are now?”

She shook her head. I stood up and crossed the room to the window. Cars were still pulling out of O’Connor’s lot, but the one that caught my eye was parked on the street: a maroon Hudson Hornet.

“Jordan took an educational tour of India and Nepal in August of last year,” said the judge. “We believe that this man accompanied her.”

India? I thought of the man at the Dew Drop Inn the night Jordan died. I had put him out of my mind, but this was a coincidence. Or was it? A school trip to India a year and half earlier, and an out-of-place foreigner in a bar a quarter mile from her shallow grave.

“Is India where the kids are going these days?” I asked. “I thought coeds dreamt of visiting France or Italy.”

“She’d already been to Europe,” said the judge. “This was one of those organized tours, sponsored by Tufts alumni, a month with lectures and special speakers.”

“Still, India. Not exactly a run-of-the-mill choice for a summer vacation.”

“Jordan was not a run-of-the-mill girl,” said Audrey Shaw, and I felt reproof in her tone. She didn’t like me.

“And you think this man went along to India?” I asked, returning to the professor in question. “Why?”

“When Jordan returned from her trip, I noticed one fellow in particular in many of her snapshots,” said Mrs. Shaw. “Nothing scandalous, of course. It just seemed he was always there next to her. There was a familiarity. And he was always smiling.”

“What did he look like?”

“Judge for yourself, Miss Stone,” she said, extending a four-by-five, black-and-white print to me. “You’re a clever young woman. I’m sure you recognize handsome when you see it.”