Stone Cold Dead (47 page)

After a suitable pause to digest his advice, I had to admit that it was the most practical course to follow. Dick Metzger may or may not molest another young girl. Maybe he was an opportunistic rapist, who took advantage of Darleen because she was handy. Had there ever been talk of him bothering other children? I didn’t know. But one thing I did know was that Louis Brossard had killed before and probably would again if he weren’t stopped. But how to catch him? The trail had gone cold in the four weeks since December 21, and I didn’t know where to turn for ideas.

“Okay, Frank. For now, I’ll put that pervert to one side. But once we nail Brossard, I’m going to make a nuisance of myself and investigate every last detail of Dick Metzger’s worthless life until I get him.”

At two thirty, I was outside the junior-high-school parking lot again, this time waiting for Gus Arnold and Carol Liswenski. I wanted to retrace my steps and badger the witnesses until one of them gave me something new to go on. Perhaps the bus driver was frightened and holding back what he knew. If he could just place Louis Brossard in the snow hills after four thirty on December 21, I was confident the DA could make a case against him.

And then there was Carol Liswenski, the weak link in the circle of Darleen’s friends. She knew a lot, some of which she’d shared with me, and more still she was keeping to herself. I was sure of it.

The buses had started to arrive, and number 63 pulled into its usual parking space along the wall. I switched off the ignition of my Royal Lancer and climbed out. Gus Arnold was not happy see me.

“I already told you everything,” he whined.

“Come on, Mr. Arnold,” I said. “You were parked behind the snow hills, not fifty yards from where Darleen Hicks was killed. And, it seems, at the exact same time. The sheriff found her gloves right there.”

“But I told you, it was dark. And I was hidden behind those trees. I couldn’t see the car.”

“What?”

“I mean, if there was a car there, I couldn’t have seen it.”

“You saw a car,” I accused.

“I didn’t see nothing.”

I glared at him. “So far, you’re the only person we know who was there that day. You have no alibi, and the sheriff’s getting heat to arrest someone for this crime. If I were you, and if I hadn’t seen a car there, I’d jolly well invent one.”

“I didn’t see a car. I can’t lie and say there was one.” He paused. “But I thought I heard one.”

That was new.

“I went to the back of the bus and opened the pint,” he continued. “I laid down and took my time to drink it. Then I must have fallen asleep for a bit. I thought I heard a car arrive, but I never looked. And I didn’t hear any voices or anything funny.”

This was a dead end. I was getting nowhere with the most recalcitrant, least reliable witness I could imagine. Just then, Carol Liswenski climbed into the bus. Wanting to get her away from her friends, I convinced her to let me give her a lift home.

“I’m sorry about Darleen,” I said as we pulled away from the school. “It must be a difficult time for you.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I kind of already accepted that she was gone. One way or another. But it’s sad to know that she’s really dead. And that someone killed her on purpose.”

“Can I ask you a question?” I said.

“I figured you would.”

“Are you and your friends on the outs? Susan and Linda?”

Carol looked away. I took that for a yes.

“Did Darleen ever talk to you about her stepfather?”

“How do you mean?”

“Did she ever tell you anything really personal about him? Like secrets?”

Carol watched me from her seat. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, in part because I had to keep my eyes on the road. She finally said that Darleen had told her and Susan and Linda about her bath time.

“She said he sometimes barged into the bathroom without knocking. She said she didn’t like that, especially if she was undressed.”

“Anything else?” I asked. “Maybe even something more secret, more personal?”

“Like what?”

I needed Carol to give me information without my putting words or ideas into her head. It had to come from her, and I had already tried to steer her to the answer. I changed gears.

“What about other men?” I asked. “Did Darleen ever tell you about men? Older men, not boys.”

Carol shrugged. “Sure. We talked about men sometimes. Elvis, Bobby Darin . . . Darleen had a real thing for Anthony Perkins for a while.”

“No, I meant men from around here.”

“You already know the stories about Darleen and Mr. Russell.”

“Yes, and I don’t believe they’re true. Anyone else?”

“Wilbur Burch,” she said.

“Not old enough. Try again.”

She shrugged once more. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know of anyone else. Oh, except Paul Newman. Darleen was in love with him after we saw
Exodus.
As a matter of fact, it was just a few days before she disappeared.”

I pulled over to the side of the road. We were approaching Carol’s house on County Highway 58, and I still needed some answers.

“Carol,” I began, “did Darleen give you a package to hold for her?”

She looked at me, startled.

“Did she give you money to hold for her?”

Carol looked down, her eyes darting from side to side as she searched for an answer.

“That’s how you got the sweater and the hairdo and the charm bracelet, isn’t it?”

Still nothing.

“And that’s why your friends are giving you the cold shoulder. How much money was there?” I asked.

“Twenty dollars,” she said suddenly. “I wouldn’t have spent it, honest, but she was dead. I just knew she was dead.”

“When did she give you the money?” I asked.

“It was the day she disappeared. In Canajoharie at the factory. She gave me an envelope and said to keep it for her, just for a while. She said she was leaving, and she didn’t want her father to find the money.”

“Why not put it in her locker?” I asked.

“Because Mr. Russell gave it to her in the parking lot that morning. Right before she got on the bus.

So much for Ted Russell telling me everything. I still didn’t think he’d killed Darleen, but I wondered why he’d lied to me about not having seen her that day.

Putting that coward’s lie to one side, I had little to go on, other than Mike Palumbo’s sighting of Louis Brossard on the Mill Street Bridge. And I needed more than that to prove he was Darleen’s killer. I tried to imagine what kind of physical evidence might have been created or left behind by Brossard, but I couldn’t come up with anything that would still be present four weeks later. And the sheriff had searched his car already. It was clean. Where else could the evidence be?

I stopped in to see Fadge and have a look at the paper. My story on Darleen’s diary had made the front page after all. Upper right-hand corner. I could get used to this. Charlie had made several edits, removed all references to the molestation except the most clinical descriptions I had managed. But my boss’s one brilliant stroke bowled me over. He included one of the photographs—in fact the one with the most chilling passage I could remember: “Last night he made me do it again.” You could read the date, a few details about her day at school, and the beginning of the heartrending line. Charlie had the lab blur the second half of the sentence, leaving only “Last night he . . .” It was even more powerful without the offending words, as if the reader would make the crime worse in his own mind. In moments like this, I realized how much I still had to learn about the newspaper business.

“When are you going to wrap this up?” asked Fadge, taking a seat with me.

“I don’t know if I will,” I said, shaking my head.

“What are you looking for?”

“Something that’s no longer there.”

I spent the evening thinking about Darleen Hicks. For the thousandth time, I reviewed the details in my head. And I thought about the girl I had grown to know so well in the past weeks. None of it helped me break the logjam.

Having polished off three glasses of whiskey and several crossword puzzles, I trudged off to bed. Within minutes, I was asleep, dreaming of the first time I met Darleen Hicks in the girls’ bathroom at the high school. The particulars were different. She was older, with no braces on her teeth, and we were best friends, planning to steal some liquor from Corky’s. And Ted Jurczyk was there, but none of Darleen’s other friends. We were laughing about something, then a phone rang in the girls’ room.

Late night calls rarely bring good news. I don’t recall ever having appreciated one, and this night was no different. I woke suddenly from my dream and needed a couple of seconds to find my bearings. Disoriented from the drink and the deep sleep, I wasn’t sure where I was until the phone pealed again.

“Hello,” I said into the receiver.

“You dirty, little slut,” came the voice. “I will get you for what you did,” and the line went dead.

In my daze, I couldn’t quite place the voice and, as my wits returned, I realized that I couldn’t be sure who it was. I suspected Dick Metzger, of course. The sheriff had released him earlier in the day, and he must have seen the article in the newspaper by now. But it could have been Louis Brossard, as well. Or Wilbur. Was he still in jail? I wasn’t at all sure, especially in my current state.

I went to the kitchen, checked the bolt, and moved the kitchen table to block the door. But I felt no safer. It was a little past one, and the long night stretched out before me. The prospect terrified me, and no new lock downstairs or furniture in front of the door provided comfort.

Pulling the curtains aside, I looked up and down on Lincoln Avenue from my bedroom. The street lamps glowed in the cold night air. Nothing looked out of place. There were several cars parked along the street, their hoods covered with a dusting of frost, indicating they’d been still for hours. I switched on all the lights and sat in the parlor trying to figure out what to do.

I could call the police or Mike Palumbo or Fadge. But I feared I was becoming a nuisance. I no longer worried about Joey Figlio—or Frankie Ralston, for that matter—and I was pretty sure Wilbur Burch was still locked up. To date, no one other than those three had actually breached my door. But I had never provoked anyone the way I had Dick Metzger and Louis Brossard. And both on the same day.

Arming myself with the longest knife in my drawer, I went back to bed and tried to sleep. But the tension was too great, and I struggled to calm myself. Time passed. After what seemed like hours, I checked the clock: two thirty. Then the noises began. I thought I heard a car in the street, but nothing was visible from my window. Next, the house creaked, and I got up to investigate, knife at the ready. Nothing. At three fifteen, the wind blew a branch or something off a tree onto the roof. At least that’s what I assumed and prayed it was.

At four, I made myself some tea, thinking it might soothe my nerves, and returned to bed. I laid my head on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. My eyes felt heavy, and Darleen was helping me to the sink in girls’ bathroom. She patted my back and smiled at me. She was wearing braces again.

The noise that woke me was in my dream, I realized soon enough. It was a bang. A gunshot, perhaps, but I woke with a start, and the carving knife fell to the floor with a great clatter. Mrs. Giannetti would surely give me an earful in the morning.