No Stone Unturned (35 page)

I screamed. He clamped one hand over my mouth and clawed at my blouse with the other, tearing the fabric and my brassiere and scratching my chest in the process. I continued to thrash about beneath him, twisting, kicking, and spitting. Then he took me by the shoulders, hoisted me roughly off my back, and slammed me back down, bouncing my head off the muddy ground. And he did it again, and a third and a fourth and a fifth time, until I went limp, dazed, gasping for air as my addled head swam. Now he positioned himself atop of me, straddling me on the wet ground, and pinned my arms over my head. I wasn’t moving, could no longer fight back. Then he pulled my blouse up over my face. He was breathing hard; I could hear it, feel it on my bare torso, as he reached under my skirt and began to rip and pull the fabric.

Then he fell forward onto my head, into the mud, relinquishing his hold on my clothing and on my body. He crawled off me, and I heard a grunting and commotion. I rolled to my left and pushed the torn blouse out of my face. Looking back over my shoulder, panting like a drowned man rescued on the shore, I saw a large man in a black pea jacket throttling Greg Hewert, punching him repeatedly in the head, reducing him to a whimpering, semiconscious, curled mass within mere seconds.

The man in black hovered over his defeated opponent like a gladiator in victory, huffing in the cold air, relishing his dominance before the coup de grâce. Then he planted a heavy boot broadside into his prostrate victim, driving a deep, heaving grunt from his belly, over his diaphragm, and out his lungs. Greg lay on the ground, bleeding from the nose and mouth, and gasping for breath. I watched, transfixed, unable to move, trying to regain my own wind. Then, realizing too late I’d lost my chance to flee, I remembered the man in the black peacoat.

His adversary humbled and down for the count, he turned to me. That’s when I saw it was Pukey Boyle, as tall as a mountain and twice as strong as the man who’d tried to rape me.

Pukey hiked up his collar and slapped some imaginary dirt from his hands. “I don’t like that guy,” he muttered sullenly as he approached me.

I retreated, crab-walked backward in the mud, trying to escape him. I caught sight of his shoes: heavy, black biker’s boots, not good for running. Then I looked up at him again, weighing my chances for a successful run for it, and I saw the insult and offense in his hard eyes, as if my fear had wounded him to the core. I stopped. After a moment, he took a step forward and offered his hand.

“You all right?”

I took his hand. He tried to help me up, but I wasn’t ready. Sitting in the mud, my skirt still hiked up around my waist, I dissolved into hysterical sobbing. Pukey knelt in the mud and wrapped his arms around me.

I wept wildly into his chest, shaking with terrors, just now realizing the horror I had dodged. In that moment, I wanted only to cleave to the man who’d saved me from such an unspeakable fate. I gasped and choked, as much from the near asphyxiation I’d suffered as for the rape I’d narrowly escaped. My head pounded, and my arm ached where Greg had twisted it near the tree.

Pukey patted my back and soothed me as a mother would. He folded my skirt back to its intended length, adjusted my blouse, and buttoned my coat over it, restoring my modesty to me. At length, my breathing slowed, my sinews slackened, and a sense of numbness overcame me.

“Come on,” he said finally. “You need to see a doctor.”

I stared at him, blinking slowly, my pupils surely dilated from the pounding my head had taken. I think I looked over at Greg Hewert, still flat on the ground.

“No cops,” said Pukey, shaking his head. “They’ll ruin your reputation. I’ll take care of him later. He won’t bother you again. Trust me.”

I was groggy, unaware of where I was or the day of the week, but I seem to recall hearing Buddy Holly singing “True Love Ways” as we raced down Route 5 toward New Holland. Then Sam Belson was holding up several fingers for me to count, and I vomited in the emergency room.

Hours later, I sat up in my hospital bed and wondered where I was. Fadge touched my arm and told me I was okay.

“Where’s Pukey?” I asked.

“He left,” said Fadge. “He said him and a buddy had some business to take care of. But what I don’t get is how you fell down a hill and hit your head. What were you doing, anyway?”

“Fell down a hill? What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Boyle said you fell down a hill and hit your head. You probably don’t remember anything.”

I turned away on the pillow and said nothing.

I had suffered scratches, bruises, and a concussion, but no broken bones. By evening, I felt better. The nausea had passed, and the Darvon had dulled the pain in my head and back. Dr. Williston, a tall, avuncular man of seventy or seventy-five, insisted I spend the night for observation, but he was confident I could leave in the morning.

“Just one thing, young lady,” he said to me when we were alone. He peered at me through his black, horn-rimmed glasses, as if trying to read my mind. “I’ve spoken to Dr. Belson about your injuries, and we both have come to the same conclusion. Is there something you want to tell me about what happened to you?”

I gulped, looked away, and shook my head as vigorously as I dared.

“You have scratches on your chest and upper thighs,” he continued softly and slowly. “Your mouth and wrists show signs of contusions, and your underclothing was torn.” He paused to give more weight to his statement. “That young man who brought you here, did he do this to you?”

“No! I fell down a hill,” I said. “I just fell down a hill.”

He touched my hand softly, still gazing into my eyes, still searching for the truth. “Would you rather speak to a nurse about this?”

“I fell down a hill.”

I lay in the low light, staring out the hospital window, when I became aware of a presence in the room. Without looking, I knew it was Pukey Boyle.

“Why?” I asked.

“That’s my business,” he said, sitting on an aluminum chair, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees.

“You were following me,” I said. “But then I hadn’t seen you for a few days.”

“That’s because a guy’s got to take a number to tail you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean between Joe Varsity and the other guy, I was so far behind you, you couldn’t have seen me.”

“Other guy?”

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1960

Next morning I was discharged from St. Joseph’s, and Fadge came to take me home. He tucked me into my bed, boiled me some tea, and served me biscuits. He was so sweet, indulgent, and gentle, that it nearly broke my heart to wish he’d leave. When he finally did, I threw back the covers and jumped out of bed. My head still hurt, but a couple of aspirins would help that. Pukey honked a couple of minutes later, and I slipped down the stairs and into the Maroon Hudson Hornet that had so unsettled me just days before. I prayed Fadge wasn’t watching from across the street.

Like embarrassed lovers, we didn’t say much at first beyond hello. Pukey roared down Market Hill, over East Main Street, and onto Route 5. More than anything, I wanted to ask him why he had been following me, why he had wanted to help me. But I was afraid of what the answer would be. If what I suspected was true, I didn’t know how to reject a man who’d saved me from the horror of rape. So I kept my question to myself.

The Hudson hummed along the river at seventy miles per hour, and we spoke about Greg Hewert.

“Why do you think he did what he did to me?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t like what you wrote about Jordan. Or maybe he’s just got blue balls. You’re a nice piece of action, Ellie. Who wouldn’t want to have a roll with you?”

“Do you think he loved her?” I asked, ignoring his inelegant compliment. “Do you think he loved Jordan?”

Pukey laughed, glanced at me and then back to the road. “What gave you that idea?”

“Fran Bartolo. She said Greg and Jordan had a thing about four years ago. Did Jordan ever mention it to you?”

Pukey shook his head, not by way of an answer, but in amused disbelief. “Four years ago, you say?” and he threw back his head in laughter.

“Fran Bartolo said Glenda Whalen caught the two of them sneaking around.”

“Tell me what the Whale saw, and we’ll put your brain power to work, Nancy Drew.”

I thought a second, my memory still foggy from the concussion, but still managed to be impressed that Pukey had heard of Nancy Drew. “Franny said that Glenda had seen Greg’s car there, and that the judge and his wife were out of town.”

“Can you be sure of that information?” asked Pukey. “Did you check on that story? A good reporter should be sure.”

“Audrey Shaw contradicted Fran’s version,” I said. “Quite vehemently, in fact. She swore she didn’t go with the judge on that trip.”

“So, can you think of any other possible explanation for why Greg’s car was in their driveway?”

Pukey’s drift was unmistakable; he’d practically spelled it out for me.

“You’re not suggesting that Greg Hewert and Audrey Shaw . . .”

Pukey just stared down the road, swallowing a mushrooming grin.

“Why should I believe that?” I asked. “To be honest with you, it seems unlikely.”

“Mrs. Shaw is a pretty lady, right? Not my style, but I can’t say it wouldn’t be a gas to screw an ex-girlfriend’s mother. And the wife of a state judge to boot.”

One who had sent him to jail.

“But we’re talking about Greg Hewert,” I said. “Suppose he was interested in her. What makes you think she’d go for him?”

Pukey took his eyes off the road and looked at me. “Women like strong types. Don’t judge Joe Varsity by yesterday at the lake; he’s no creampuff. Just no match for me. And I suppose some women think he’s good looking.”

“Do you know this firsthand? I mean, did you ever see them together?”

“No, but I knew what was going on. And Jordan knew it, too, though she never admitted it.”

“And the judge?” I asked, recalling the tense exchange I’d witnessed between the Shaws at the funeral home.

“Maybe. I can’t say for sure.”

About ten miles east of New Holland, Pukey swung off Route 5 into a long drive that cut through the high grass near the river: the Leatherstocking Motel.

“This is the place,” he said, rolling to a stop about twenty yards from the registration office. “And that’s the car I followed here.” He pointed to a late-model, light-blue Chevrolet Impala parked at the end of the lot.

“Let’s take a closer look,” I said, and we popped open our doors in unison.

The blue sedan had New York diplomatic plates, which baffled me, and the engine was cold; it hadn’t moved in hours.

“You two looking for something?” A frail, gray-haired man in a faded flannel shirt and rumpled fishing vest peered across the lot at us. The manager.

“We’re looking for the man who owns that car,” I said, walking toward the office. “My name is Ellie Stone. I write for the
Republic
.”

“And who’s that with you, the paperboy?”

Pukey’s eyes turned red, and I thought he was going to punch the old guy’s lights out. I grabbed him by the arm and restrained him.

“He’s with me,” I said. “Who belongs to the car?”