Stone Cold Dead (18 page)

George Walsh entered the newsroom and waddled over to his desk a short distance away. He threw a sour look my way then inspected the nibs of several pencils before finally selecting one.

“What are you doing here, Stone?” he asked as he scribbled something on a sheet of paper before him. “I thought Charlie sent you out on basketball duty.” He chuckled. “Better you than me.”

“Funny. That’s what Charlie said, too,” I answered, and George’s smirk vanished. Norma snorted back a laugh.

“Are you lost, Mrs. Geary?” he asked. “Mighty far from the steno pool, aren’t we?”

“Mr. Reese assigned me to Miss Stone,” she said. “I’m her assistant.”

George’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, and he could muster no speech. After huffing and puffing himself breathless, he grabbed a sheet of carbon and rolled it backwards into his electric typewriter—no accompanying paper—and began banging away.

“You’re going to be late for the basketball,” Norma said.

“Leaving now,” I mumbled. “This one’s not ready yet. Just notes, mostly. Take this one instead,” I said, shoving a two-page report on the city council’s last meeting at her.

Georgie Porgie noticed his blunder with the carbon paper and tore it from the machine. He glanced at me to see if I was watching and, like a snoozing cat that’s fallen off the sofa, pretended nothing had happened.

“All right, then,” said Norma. “You’ll have to finish the Hicks story tomorrow.” George Walsh’s ears pricked up. “It can wait one more day.”

I slipped what I had of Darleen’s story into the drawer of my desk, grabbed my coat and purse, and hurried out the door, trying to remember if I had enough Scotch at home for after the game. I turned to wish Norma good night, and noticed George Walsh glaring at me. I was sure he’d be complaining to Artie Short about my assistant as soon as I’d gone.

The New Holland Bucks and the Mont Pleasant Red Raiders of Schenectady took to the court at seven. A full house cheered them on as the boys ran through their pregame layup and passing drills. I was courtside, loading film in my camera and scouting the opponents as they warmed up, placing names to the skinny frames for my recap later on. Minutes before the tip-off, Coach Mahoney gathered his charges around the bench to review the game plan. Once he’d finished and the boys had broken their huddle, I corralled Teddy Jurczyk on the bench as he tightened his shoelaces. I introduced myself and asked if I could speak to him after the game for the newspaper. He looked a little frightened, but then smiled shyly and said sure. Just then, Ted Russell, of all people, tapped me on the shoulder.

“I’ve tried to phone you, Ellie, but you’re never home.”

Teddy Jurczyk blushed, and I cursed my bad luck for running into the music teacher.

“Yes, I’m on duty, Mr. Russell,” I said, now blushing myself and surely fooling no one.

“Working on the Darleen Hicks story?” he asked. “At the basketball game? Don’t tell me you’re interviewing suspects here,” and he chuckled. Teddy gave a visible start. “Anyway, how about we catch a bite to eat somewhere after the game?”

I really wanted to cast my eyes downward and beg off demurely or somehow discourage his advances. But I didn’t. I didn’t even answer him. I was too busy studying the horrified look on Teddy Jurczyk’s face. The color had drained from his red cheeks, his mouth hung ajar, and his troubled eyes betrayed a roiling agitation within.

“Ellie? Uh, Miss Stone?” said Ted, perhaps realizing for the first time that I didn’t want to broadcast our acquaintance publicly, at least not in front of a subject I had to interview later on.

“Ted, I’m sorry but I’m covering the basketball game here,” I said a little too sharply. “Please.”

He looked wounded, but got the hint. He apologized for the interruption and wished Teddy good luck for the game.

Teddy picked up a towel and wiped his brow, still not quite in control of his emotions.

“Teddy,” I said to him. He looked at me. This kid needed a pat on the back. “Teddy, you can do it,” I said. “Go out there and win this game for us.”

“I hate that name,” he said, almost in a whisper, then turned and dragged himself out to center court.

CHAPTER TEN

I watched the carnage from my seat behind the New Holland bench. Teddy Jurczyk put on the worst performance of his brief career. Two points, one of nine shots made, two double dribbles, a walk, and all three free throws missed. The visitors took full advantage of Teddy’s troubles and raced to a 34–16 halftime lead. The hometown crowd went from boisterous anticipation of a victory at tip-off—a win would lift the Bucks into a tie with Albany for first place in the Class A league—to dismal and surly silence by halftime. And some of the discontent was directed at me.

“That girl was talking to Teddy just before the game,” said a man a couple of rows behind me. “She said something to upset him. Probably from Schenectady.”

“Why doesn’t she sit on their side?” asked a woman near him.

I tried to shrink into my seat, but the people near me inched away. I made a big show of standing and reloading my camera, displaying my press badge prominently, and yelling encouragement for the home team when the players appeared on the court for the second half. Teddy didn’t fare much better after the intermission, though, finishing with just seven points in a crushing defeat, 59–37. Though it was my assignment, I had little interest in torturing the poor kid by rehashing his dreadful performance with an interview about basketball. But judging by his reaction to Ted Russell’s comment, I wondered how well he might know Darleen Hicks. Even if I thought the case was settled, I like my stories to be complete, and I felt the need to have one more answer from Teddy Jurczyk.

Teddy evaded me temporarily when the final whistle blew, disappearing into the locker room before I could grab him, but I’m not so easily discouraged. I parked myself outside the locker room, endured the snide remarks of a couple of high-school boys, who joked about me waiting for my boyfriend to finish showering. They laughed, thinking they were clever, congratulating each other for their wit.

“Yes, I’m waiting for my boyfriend,” I said. “Where are your dates?”

Their mirth soured, and they slunk away.

Just then the locker room door swung open and Coach Mahoney stepped out. He walked right past me without noticing my presence. It was too much to expect that he might recognize me as the reporter who’d interviewed him four times in recent weeks about the team’s progress. I was just a skirt in the corridor. Then Teddy emerged, shuffling, eyes cast down to the floor, a small canvas gym bag in his hand. He didn’t see me until I called to him. He stopped, looked back at me, and nearly ran. But what was he running from?

“May I speak to you, Teddy?” I asked. “Nothing about the game. We all have off nights.”

He didn’t know what to say. He was just a fifteen-year-old boy, after all. Little artifice, no sophistication, and a reluctance to talk to strange girls.

“I don’t know what happened to Darleen,” he volunteered.

“Tell me about her,” I said.

“What’s to tell?” he asked, setting his gym bag on the floor. “She’s a swell girl. In my homeroom since seventh grade.”

“Did you see her the day she disappeared? Maybe in the parking lot near the buses?”

He shook his head. “No, she was on a field trip that day.”

“She came back to the school to catch her bus,” I corrected. “And if you and Darleen were in the same homeroom, you must have gone to Canajoharie, too.”

He stood silent. His crew cut, still wet from his shower, glistened in the fluorescent light of the corridor. He wanted to go, run, put as much distance between him and me as possible. But he was too polite for that.

“Did you go to the Beech-Nut factory that day?” I asked.

Teddy didn’t answer right away. He just stared at me, chewing his lower lip. Finally, he nodded.

“Yes, I went to Canajoharie that day,” he said softly. “But I didn’t even talk to Darleen on the bus or at the factory. And I didn’t see her after that, either.”

I must have looked skeptical, because he repeated his story. Then he said he had to go.

“I can’t talk here. Some of the fellows are still in the locker room. They’ll be out any minute.”

“Can you meet me at Fiorello’s later tonight?” I asked. “Around eleven. We can talk privately there.”

Teddy didn’t like the idea, but he nodded okay.

I walked briskly toward my car, parked on the southeast side of the lot outside the high school. The weather report called for warming temperatures the next day, an end to the brutal cold spell we’d been under the past three weeks. But that was small consolation this night; it was freezing. I saw groups of kids huddling in the dark, smoking, joking, waiting. One girl caught my eye. Susan Dobbs was holding court with Linda Attanasio and four other girls. She was in charge, that much was clear, as the girls focused their attentions on her.

I thought about stopping to ask a question, but then remembered the bus receipt and told myself it was too cold to tie up loose ends. Then a dark station wagon rolled up to the group, blasted the horn, and Susan waved goodbye to her friends. I could see the man at the wheel, surely her father. About forty, with a hunter’s cap on his head and several days’ stubble on his chin, he lit a cigarette as Susan and Linda climbed in. Never even looked at them. And Susan didn’t look at him. He just threw the car into gear and drove off. Susan waved out the window to her friends as they went.

I slipped into my car and emitted a long shiver that rose from deep inside of me. Then I loosed a scream and lunged for the door. There was someone else in the car.

“It’s okay, Miss Stone,” came a girl’s voice from beside me in the darkness of the passenger seat. “It’s me, Carol Liswenski.”

“Oh, my God,” I panted. “You gave me such a fright! I thought you were someone else. What are you doing in my car?”

“Sorry,” she said with a sheepish smile. “It was just so cold waiting for you, I thought I’d wait in here. Your car door is broken, by the way. Did you know that?”

“Yes, I was aware of that,” I said, my breathing slowly returning to normal. I wasn’t sure my heart would ever recover. The specter of Joey Figlio, juvenile-delinquent car thief, lying in wait for me in my car, ready to take me on another joyride, terrified me more than I would have expected. He was just a kid, after all. Yet he had happily left me to freeze to death on the side of the road, then tried to do it again, all in one day. I thought with dread of the lax security at Fulton Reform School, the ease with which Joey routinely slipped his bonds. When would he come for me again? What was stopping him?

“Are you all right, Miss Stone?” asked Carol. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. It’s just that I lost my ride. Could you drive me home?”

“What happened to your ride?”

“Susan Dobbs and I came to the game with her boyfriend, Pete Keppler. He’s sixteen and has a car.” She said it to impress me. Didn’t work. “Then they had a fight, and she left with Rick Stafford.”

“And Rick didn’t give you a ride home?” I asked, certain that the man driving Susan away was not her new boyfriend. “She ditched you?”

Carol shrugged. “Yeah, well, she was sorry about it, but you know how it is.”

No, I didn’t know how it was. I had forgone a few trysts with some dreamy boys in my younger days to look after a friend: Janey Silverman on one of our boozy nights cruising lounges on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Janey didn’t hold her liquor as well as I did, and there were plenty of men all too eager to take full advantage of an underage girl. We were scarcely older than Carol Liswenski and Susan Dobbs, yet I never abandoned my friend for a guy. And to top it all off, I had to figure out why Carol was lying to me about Susan.

“Fine, I’ll take you home,” I said, starting the car. “But you’re going to have to help me out with something.”

“I will if I can,” she said. “Mind if we listen to the radio?”

By the time we’d reached the Mill Street Bridge, I’d suffered through Dion and the Belmonts, the Hollywood Argyles, and Andy Williams. Carol loved them all. Then, when Brook Benton and Dinah Washington came on, finally giving me something I could enjoy, she turned her nose up at “A Rockin’ Good Way” and changed the station. I switched off the radio.