Stone Cold Dead (38 page)

“I don’t know how you can drink this stuff, but go ahead,” he said. “And you should mop up the one you spilled, too.”

I muttered under my breath, but ended up on my hands and knees with a sponge and rag, wiping up the whiskey. Once I’d finished, I poured myself a drink and cheered my guest.

“Bottoms up,” I said, raising my glass and taking a long pull. Would he take the bait? He did, but only sipped this time.

“Tastes a little better now,” he said. “The melting ice helps.”

I put the eggs on to fry, thinking he would only last a couple more minutes. But somehow he was resisting the effects of fatigue and alcohol. A few minutes later, he was wide awake and coherent as he wolfed down the eggs and bacon I served him. Then he patted his stomach, yawned, and downed the rest of his drink. He didn’t need to ask me for a refill.

“Let’s sit in there,” he said, grabbing his glass, and teetering a bit as he rose from the chair. “The couch looks comfortable.”

“Sure,” I said. “If you’re intent on spending the night, I should get you a blanket.”

Joey plopped himself down on the sofa, and I ducked into my bedroom for the blanket.

“Hey, where are you going?” he slurred. “Get back in here.”

“Coming,” I said and switched off the bedroom light. I tossed the blanket to him. “Here, in case you get cold.”

“I’m going to kill him, you know,” said Joey.

“I beg your pardon.”

“Mr. Russell. I’m going to get him eventually. I just needed a better weapon. I’ve got that now,” and he twitched the carving knife to show me.

“But why do you want to kill him?” I asked, willing him silently to take another gulp. I took one myself and shamelessly licked my lips to prompt him.

“He killed Darleen,” said Joey.

“I don’t believe he did. What reason would he have to do so? He barely knew her.”

“Didn’t Frankie give you that letter like I told him?”

“He did.”

“So, that proves Mr. Russell was in love with her. And when she told him no, that she loved me and was going to run off with me, he murdered her.”

“So you two were really planning on eloping?” I asked, marveling at how well this kid held his liquor.

“Of course. We were just trying to save up the money. Maybe a hundred dollars. Two hundred, and we’d have been all set. We were going to go to Florida.”

“And you’re sure she wanted to go with you?”

“What do you mean by that?” he said.

“Just that certain evidence has come to light. Darleen had a bus ticket for Arizona, you know.”

Joey’s doubt evaporated, and he smiled, showing his grayish teeth. “That was my idea,” he said. “That clown Wilbur Burch was in love with Darleen, so I told her to ask him for money and a bus ticket.”

“Your idea?” I asked.

“Yeah. He was going to send money and a bus ticket. She even got him to send the receipt with the ticket so we could exchange it for a refund. Then we were going to go to Florida.” He laughed and took a drink.

“And did he ever send the money?”

Joey leaned forward and snatched a handful of cigarettes from a wooden box on the coffee table. He lit one and stuffed the rest into his breast pocket.

“He sure did,” he said.

“And was she trying to get money elsewhere?” I asked.

Joey shrugged and took another sip of whiskey. “This is pretty good,” he said. “Makes you a little sleepy, though.”

I stood and offered to top off his drink. “More ice?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, holding out his glass.

I went to the kitchen, emptied the watery Scotch at the bottom of his glass, and refilled it to the top with only one ice cube.

“Did Darleen go to Mr. Russell for money?” I asked as I put his drink down on the table. He started. Damn, he’d been asleep and I’d roused him.

“Huh?” he asked.

“Did Darleen go to Mr. Russell for money?” I repeated.

He shook his head. “No. She wanted to after Wilbur was so easy to fool, but I told her I didn’t want her to talk to him.”

I kept quiet. It seemed Darleen made some decisions on her own. I still wasn’t convinced that Darleen had any intention of running off with Joey. She had amassed a hundred dollars without even cashing in the bus ticket. And there was twenty dollars from Ted Russell that Joey didn’t know about. And who knew if she’d stashed any other funds? I had my suspicions about how Carol Liswenski had managed to save enough money to buy a new sweater, a charm bracelet, and a new hairstyle. Could it be that she’d gotten the cash from Darleen? I’d tried to get that information out of her the previous evening at Fiorello’s, but she’d clammed up. And she had lied to me about Susan Dobbs and her boyfriend at the basketball game. Clearly Carol was on the outs with Susan and Linda, and I wondered if it didn’t have something to do with Darleen’s money. I wanted another chance to make her crack, but I had to get Joey Figlio to pass out before I could even think about that.

“Anyway,” I said, returning to the plan to elope, “two hundred dollars is a lot of money, but not so much that you could live on it for very long.”

“I was going to get a job,” he said. “We were going to be on Easy Street. Then Mr. Russell ruined everything.”

“I happen to know for sure that he didn’t write that letter, Joey,” I said. “They compared the handwriting to his, and they don’t match.”

Joey sat up in his seat and folded his black shoe beneath him on the cushion. Now I’d need to send it to the dry cleaners, as I have a horror of people putting their shoes on furniture.

“He signed his name,” said Joey, and he took another swig of whiskey.

“No. It was someone else,” reluctant to say more for fear of putting Ted Jurczyk in Joey’s sights. “Maybe someone wanted to cast doubt on Ted Russell, so they signed his name.”

Joey looked away in thought, searching through the wooly-headedness of fatigue and strong drink, swaying in his seat, at the point of falling over. Then he slumped backward into the sofa, and the knife fell from his hand to the floor. I snatched it up before he could awaken.

Then there was a noise from the door. I rushed to the kitchen, still carrying the knife, and glanced at the clock on the stove. I wasn’t sure if I had adjusted the time since Daylight Savings ended the previous October. I also didn’t know if the clock was accurate anyway. I had removed my wristwatch to wash my underthings, and it was in the bathroom. Still, I knew it must be close to midnight, which meant Officer Mike Palumbo, having seen my signal, must be on the other side of the door.

I yanked open the door, realized my error immediately, and tried to slam it shut. The man standing there in the semidarkness was not Officer Palumbo, but someone I’d never seen before. He lunged forward and stuck his foot into the doorframe, blocking my one chance to close him out, then he put his shoulder to the door and forced his way in. I backed off, brandishing the carving knife I’d just taken from Joey. He saw it and kept his distance. A silent standoff ensued.

The man was about twenty, of average height and weight, with a crew cut, a scruffy, week-old beard, and a mad look in his eye. He hadn’t bathed in at least a few days, and his hide was throwing off a ripe stench.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

“I’m looking for Joey Figlio,” he said. “You can put down the knife. I don’t mean you no harm.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” I said, refusing to sheathe my weapon.

“I’m Wilbur Burch,” he said.

“What are you doing here?”

“I told you,” he said, holding up his hands to indicate friendly intentions. “I’m looking for Joey Figlio. I’ve been following him since I seen him this afternoon downstreet. I followed him here.”

“Why are you looking for Joey?”

“Because I got word Darleen was missing. So I lit out and hitchhiked across the country to find out what happened to her. And when I get here, I find out that she’s dead. I want to get the guy who killed my Darleen.”

“And you think Joey Figlio did it?”

He nodded. “He found out about Darleen and me, that I sent her a bus ticket, and she was coming to meet me in Arizona to get married. So he killed her.”

“How do you know he found out about you two?” I asked, lowering the knife a touch.

“She wrote to me that we had to keep the whole thing secret because of him,” he said. “That’s why I had to buy the bus ticket and not her. She said it would be safer that way. Then I wired her a hundred dollars. It was every penny I could borrow on the base.”

“Joey says Darleen was going to marry
him,
” I said cautiously.

“I got the proof here,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a well-traveled, wrinkled letter. “It says so right here in her own handwriting. She’s coming to marry me, and she’s through with Joey. See for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

He extended the letter to me. I took it from him, holding tight to the carving knife.

“I’m sorry I gave you a fright, miss,” he said. “But you have nothing to worry about from me.”

The letter indeed said everything Wilbur had claimed. It was dated November 2, 1960. Darleen instructed Wilbur to get the money and bus ticket as soon as possible. She also wrote that she knew how to get a fake ID, so there would be no reason they couldn’t get married as soon as she arrived in Arizona. And she described how they had to keep it from Joey, or he would ruin everything. I was reading quickly, my eyes darting up and down, from the sheet of paper in my hand to the man I was holding at bay with my large knife. One line in particular caught my eye:

“He’s crazy, you know. He said he’ll kill me and put the blame on someone else if I try to leave him.”

I stared at the letter, reading that line over and over, trying to decide if Darleen was playing Wilbur or Joey or both for the fool. Was it possible that she wasn’t interested in either of them? That there was a third man in her life? Perhaps even Ted Russell? Why not, I thought. He was smarter by half than Joey and Wilbur put together. What if he and Darleen had cooked up the scheme to run off, and it was Joey Figlio who’d thrown a wrench in the works by killing her? Ted Russell certainly wouldn’t admit to anything after Darleen’s death. That could only attract suspicion to him. I was just thinking that my newfound doubts about Ted Russell were a long shot at best when Wilbur Burch snatched my arm and twisted it until I dropped the knife. It clattered on the floor, and Wilbur picked it up with his left hand then hit me hard across the face with a backhand from his right.

“You little tramp,” he sneered. And he struck me again, this time knocking me to the floor and into the cupboard, loosing a loud thud and a clanging of pots and pans. In my pain I comforted myself with the certainty that Mrs. Giannetti would be running up the stairs at any moment to investigate. But then I wondered if I’d still be alive to see her arrive.

Wilbur grabbed me by my hair and lifted me back off the floor. “Pull a knife on me, will you?” he said through gritted teeth, his face up against mine, blowing his awful breath against my skin.

“Hey!” came a voice from behind us. “What the hell are you doing? Let go of her!”

Wilbur pushed me away and turned to Joey, standing in the doorway between kitchen and parlor.

“There you are,” said Wilbur.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Wilbur Burch,” he said, and Joey coughed a short laugh.

Wilbur took a step toward him. “You think it’s funny? I’m here to kill you for what you did to Darleen.”

Joey didn’t flinch, didn’t move, didn’t do anything. Except to pull a small pistol from his coat pocket and aim it at Wilbur’s chest. Despite my fear and the stinging of my cheeks, I couldn’t help wondering why he hadn’t used the gun before, to threaten me or to shoot Ted Russell. You wouldn’t think these things would course through your head in such life-threatening moments, but they do.

And then there was a rumbling on the stairs. Joey looked at me, the gun still pointing at Wilbur, who was backing up slowly toward the door. I figured there were three possibilities: (1) Mrs. Giannetti. I doubted she would make so much noise, which left me with two other choices. (2) Fadge. He was so big and made such a racket when he came up the stairs, you would almost swear it was someone falling down instead. And (3) Officer Palumbo. He’d promised that if he saw my distress signal in the window, he would storm up the stairs with guns blazing.

I was wrong. The man who burst through my kitchen door was Dr. Arnold Dienst, huffing and sweating like a buffalo after a summer rampage across the plains.

“Grab him!” I screamed, pointing to Wilbur Burch, who chose Dienst’s arrival as the moment to make good his escape. Dienst was certainly large enough to handle Wilbur, but he was slow, like a lummox, and watched him whiz by. I thanked my lucky stars that Joey hadn’t fired the pistol, and then Wilbur tripped on the stairs and tumbled all the way down to the street, crashing through the glass storm door at the bottom. Chaos reigned. I heard Mrs. Giannetti screaming bloody murder downstairs, and then another set of footsteps mounted the stairs. Palumbo. Finally.

On the porch, a second cop handcuffed Wilbur Burch, who had knocked himself unconscious with his half gainer down a flight of stairs. Dr. Dienst tried to talk Palumbo into letting him take charge of Joey, but Vic Mature would hear none of it.

“What were you doing here, anyway?” the cop asked him.

“I’ve been trying to find Joseph for days,” said Dienst. “I finally had a brainwave this evening, and I thought he just might try to bother Miss Stone again. It’s not the first time, after all.”

“Officer,” I said, interrupting. “He’s got a gun in his jacket,” and I pointed to Joey, who offered it up sheepishly.

“It’s not real,” he said. “From wood shop. Plus some shoe polish.”

Palumbo took it and turned it over and over in his hand, admiring the workmanship.

“This is amazing,” he said in his deep baritone, positively aglow. “The best I’ve ever seen. You made this?”

“Yeah,” said Joey, shrugging his shoulders.

Palumbo looked to Dr. Dienst, holding out the fake pistol.

“Now, Joseph,” said Dienst, “if you applied yourself to other endeavors in the same manner, think what you might accomplish.”