Stone Cold Dead (32 page)

“Nice tan you got in Arizona,” I said as we reached the second floor.

I spent the morning preparing my feature on Teddy Jurczyk. All I needed was ten minutes of his time and a couple of nice action shots from the game that evening. Louis Brossard called mid-morning to let me know I could meet Teddy at three after his last class ended.

To confirm what Irene Metzger had told me, I telephoned Alma Norquist, the neighbor who shared the party line with the Metzgers. Of course, this wasn’t the first time I’d spoken to her. The evening I got stranded at the Karl farm, I had interrupted Mrs. Norquist on the phone and told her we were under nuclear attack. I thought the odds were long that she would recognize my voice, but even if she did, at least she couldn’t complain about how Armageddon had turned out.

Her version of Darleen’s adult-male caller matched Irene Metzger’s in the main, but I had a couple of questions of my own for her. I wanted her to describe the man’s voice. Deep? Did he speak slowly? Did he have an accent? Did he sound like a young man or middle-aged? No, no, no, and hard to say. His voice, it seems, was quite unremarkable.

“And you’re positive you’d never heard the voice before?” I asked. “Could it have been a neighbor? Bobby Karl, perhaps? Or Mr. Rasmussen?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I know those two. It wasn’t them. Besides, Bobby Karl is tongue-tied in front of girls. And the man asked to meet her at the school.”

“Do you know if Darleen ever got other calls?” I asked. “From friends or boyfriends her own age?”

“Of course. That girl was always on the phone. Used to hog the line.”

“Any boyfriends?”

“Two or three,” she said. “Let’s see. There was Wilbur, of course. But that was months ago. What a dullard that boy was,” and she laughed. “And there were two others she spoke with more recently.”

“Was one named Joey?” I asked, wondering if Alma Norquist had a television—or was the party line her own personal soap opera?

“Oh, yes, I remember him. The little snot called me ‘Grandma’ when I told him it was my time to do my telephoning. ‘Keep your shirt on, Grandma,’ he said. Of all the nerve.”

“Who was the other boy?”

She searched her memory but couldn’t retrieve the name. “It’s on the tip of my tongue,” she said. “A polite boy.”

My skin tingled, as I remembered a series of notes I’d come across.

“Was it Ted, by any chance?” I asked.

“That’s it! Smart boy. And polite. Never called me ‘Grandma.’”

I’d had a feeling itching the back of my brain since my interview with little Gordie Douglas. The boy wonder said “endomorphic” was the word his opponent had missed when he’d won his crown. (I still couldn’t believe they’d asked one kid to spell “endomorphic” and then given Gordie “poodle” for the win.) And that had reminded me of the note I’d found in Darleen’s room, the one from Edward, who, according to Irene Metzger, had been in love with Darleen since seventh grade. He’d referred to a Mr. Bellows as an “endomorphic walrus.” Then there was the note in Darleen’s lunch box, signed “Ted.” And the love note smuggled out of Fulton to me by Frankie Ralston, also signed Ted. What if Ted and Edward were one and the same? Ted was a common nickname for Edward, after all. I asked myself if a grown man like Ted Russell would sign his name so blithely on love notes to a fifteen-year-old girl. Possibly, but I pegged him as savvier than that. He still might be a child molester, but he wasn’t a fool.

So, back to my question: What if, by some chance, Edward and Ted were one and the same? Teachers don’t often mock each other in signed notes to students, so I doubted Edward’s note had been written by Ted Russell. Despite the advanced vocabulary and good punctuation, I was sure that note had come from a student. And if Edward was Ted, what did that say about the love note Joey Figlio had smuggled out to me via Frankie Ralston? And the last note from Ted found in Darleen’s lunch box?

Why would Edward change his name to Ted? Who knew what ideas got into kids’ heads? Maybe he’d been given a new name against his will, a name he didn’t like. Whatever the reason, I was sure Teddy Jurczyk was in love with Darleen Hicks up until the day she vanished. And it appeared he may have slipped a note into her lunch box asking her to get off the bus to speak to him just moments before it rumbled off without her.

Brossard held the door for me, and I entered his office. Teddy Jurczyk was sitting in a ladder-back chair before the assistant principal’s desk, fidgeting and sweating in his checkered shirt and blue cardigan. I said hello, and Teddy cracked a smile. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard, and I took a seat in the chair next to him.

“Now, Teddy, there’s nothing to be nervous about,” said Brossard, taking his place behind his desk. “Miss Stone is writing a nice little feature on you and your basketball success. Just a few questions for you. It’ll only sting a bit,” and he chuckled. When he saw that Teddy wasn’t laughing, he went all serious again and cleared his throat. “Miss Stone, please proceed.”

I smiled as genial a smile as I could muster, but Teddy looked white. Even whiter than usual. “When did you first start playing basketball?” I asked, hoping such an innocuous question would assuage his fears. He didn’t answer, so I dumbed it down even more: “How old were you?”

He gulped again and said, “Six.” Then he smiled awkwardly and drew a deep breath. With the first word out of the way, he relaxed a bit.

“Good boy,” said Brossard, positively drinking in Teddy with his adoring eyes.

“Did your dad play basketball?” I continued.

He nodded. “Yes, he liked to play. Played in the CYO when he was my age.”

“He didn’t play for New Holland?”

“No.” For the most part, Teddy avoided my eyes, but at least he had found speech. God, this kid was going to have a hard time asking a girl to a dance. “Pop didn’t finish high school. He went to work in the mill and then came the war. He had to stop.”

“Okay, now here’s a tough question,” I said. “You’re just a freshman, playing with boys much older than you. Were you nervous the first time Coach put you in the game?”

Teddy straightened up in his chair and looked me in the eye. “Before the game, yes, I sure was. Coach told me Dickie was too sick to play, and I was in. I threw up twice in the locker room. But then,” his eyes actually sparkled at this point, “as soon as the referee tossed up the jump ball, my butterflies disappeared. It was a very peaceful feeling. Phil Carbone got the ball and passed it to me. I scored on a layup on the first play.”

I smiled at him, and he gave me a big grin back. “Do you want to pursue basketball in college?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know about college. My pop says if I get a scholarship somewhere, maybe I can play. Otherwise, I’ll probably go to work in one of the mills.”

If there are any mills left by the time he graduates high school, I thought.

“Your pop must be very proud of you. Does he come to your games?”

“He hasn’t missed one yet,” said Teddy. “He sits in the middle row at center court with my little sister, Patricia.”

“The boy’s mother passed away a few years ago,” said Brossard to me as an aside. Teddy said nothing.

“That’s nice that your sister comes to root you on,” I said, and I meant it.

He blushed.

“Now, what about girls?” I asked. “Are you going steady with anyone?”

“Perhaps you have enough now, Miss Stone,” interrupted Brossard. “Teddy has to eat something and get up to the high school for tonight’s game.”

“Almost finished,” I said. “Just one more question?” Brossard consulted his watch and nodded. “Is Edward your full name?” I asked Teddy.

His face darkened, and Brossard choked on something across the desk. Teddy hesitated, almost as if weighing his answer. I noticed a sparkle in his eyes, but not the happy glittering I’d seen just a few moments before. Finally he uttered a simple “Yes.”

“Why don’t you like the name ‘Teddy’?” I asked.

He fidgeted again, as if he just wanted to get out of there. “No one ever called me ‘Teddy’ until recently. Since basketball season started. It makes me feel like a kid.”

The explanation seemed sound to me, so I nodded. “Would you like me to refer to you as Ted Jurczyk in the papers?” I asked.

His smile returned, broad and beaming. “That would be swell,” he said.

“Did your mother call you Ted?” He didn’t answer. “I lost my mother, too. She called me Ellie when my father named me Eleonora.”

“What was all that business about his name?” Brossard asked me once the boy had left. He seemed miffed. “I think Teddy J. is a fine name. It’ll make him famous.”

“He told me he hated that name,” I said as a matter of fact. “At the game last week.”

Brossard huffed and shook his head. “But I came up with that name,” he said.

“It’s all right, Mr. Brossard,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “There’ll be other boys to name.”

Back at the office, I had a couple of hours to work on my profile of Ted Jurczyk and grab a bite at the lunch counter next door. I selected three shots of the freshman for the article: a graceful layup, a defensive pose, and his team portrait. He stood there in his satin uniform, holding a basketball on his hip, as he smiled at the camera. I entered the caption: Ted Jurczyk, freshman guard. I was working on a paragraph describing his stellar academic record when George Walsh rushed into the room.

“Whaddya know, Georgie Porgie?” I said, not even looking up from my typewriter and certainly not expecting an answer.

He stuffed his arms into his coat, grabbed his umbrella and hat, then headed for the door. He paused over my desk and said with a sarcastic grin, “Read the papers, Eleonora.”