Stone Cold Dead (19 page)

“You said you would help me,” I said. “I need you to tell me who Darleen spoke to when she got off the bus the day she disappeared.”

Carol was having none of it. “I already told you I didn’t see who it was.”

We’d reached the top of Mill Street, and I turned west on Route 5S. I sensed something fishy about the entire conversation, but this was no time to stop. I wanted to see how much more information—truth or lies—I could get from her.

“Do you know Wilbur Burch?” I asked as we gathered speed along the highway.

Carol jerked her head to look at me. “Why do you ask about Wilbur?”

“Just something I heard about him and Darleen. Weren’t they getting serious about five months ago? Before he shipped out for the army?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” she said, turning away to the window.

“They didn’t stay in contact after he left? By mail, perhaps?”

Carol scoffed then said Darleen didn’t read or write letters. “She didn’t bother with that kind of thing.”

The paper was quiet at ten, except for Composition and Bobby Thompson in the photo lab. As the
Republic
was an evening paper, the presses in the basement wouldn’t be active until the following morning. I handed a roll of film from the game to Bobby to develop. Nothing too exciting— we weren’t the Schenectady paper after all—and I left a note for Ralphie Fisher, sports editor, to choose any two shots he liked. I sat at my desk and rapped out my story in record time. Try as I might, there wasn’t much I could embellish about the home team’s performance. The Red Raiders had dominated from the opening tip-off to the final whistle. Gerald Washington, Mont Pleasant’s six-foot-four-inch center, scored nineteen points and pulled down seventeen rebounds. He also blocked seven shots, including one of Teddy Jurczyk’s. I didn’t mention that in my article.

I pulled the last page of my piece from the typewriter at a quarter to eleven, retrieved a folder from my desk drawer, and slipped the story inside. I filed the carbon copy for my records and stood to leave. I had an appointment with Teddy Jurczyk in fifteen minutes. But then I stopped. One of those queer sensations that something was off beam seized me just as I was buttoning my coat. Turning to look over my shoulder, I fixed my gaze on the desk drawer. I slid it open and checked the contents. Everything seemed normal. Even my story on Darleen’s bus receipt was there. But it was face down in the drawer, not the way I’d left it, I was sure. I was being paranoid. The cleaning lady, Luba, must have straightened things out. I grabbed my purse and camera and headed for Composition on my way out.

Fiorello’s was slowing down when I arrived a few minutes after eleven. Only a few straggling teenagers in the booths. In summer you could find some older patrons at this hour, stopping in for a late-night sundae or banana split. But in the dead of a January cold spell, no one was buying ice cream.

I took a seat at the counter and asked Fadge if anyone had been looking for me.

“Aren’t these boys a little young for you?”

“I’m serious,” I said as he placed a mug of vanilla ice cream and hot fudge in front of me. “And I didn’t order this.”

“That means the calories don’t count.”

“Is that your strategy for dieting?” I asked.

He called me an unflattering name then asked who was looking for me anyway. I leaned across the counter to whisper the name discreetly.

“Poor kid,” he said. “Had a bad night from what I hear.”

I nodded. “He looked spooked out on the court. But I don’t want to talk to him about basketball. I have a sneaking suspicion he knew Darleen Hicks pretty well.”

“Well, he hasn’t been in,” said Fadge, noticing a kid near the cigarette case opposite the candy display. “Hey, Zeke! Get away from those cigarettes. If I catch you stealing, you’re banned for life.”

“I wasn’t going to steal anything,” said the kid. Fadge knew most of the kids by name. “Honest, Fadge. I was just waiting for Joe. He’s in the bathroom.”

Fadge turned back to me. “Damn Joe Biggins. I didn’t see him buy anything, and now he’s using the bathroom.”

“Your office,” I said, just as the front door opened, and Pat Mahoney, the basketball coach, strolled in. He made a beeline for me.

“Hello, Miss Stone,” he said. “Can we talk for a minute?”

I exchanged a glance with Fadge, who motioned to the last booth in the back, near the pay phone. It was the only clean table. The other booths had just cleared out a minute before, and the place was empty except for Coach Mahoney, Zeke, Joe, Fadge, and me. Oh, and Bill, the retarded dishwasher. “Retarded” is perhaps not the right term, since Bill was probably closer to an idiot savant. He was busy smoking a stogie over the soapy sink in the back room. His lips were moving in some kind of private conversation with himself. Bill was sweet, but he’d pinch your behind if you weren’t careful. I always made it a point to face front when he was in the room.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here,” said Mahoney once we’d slipped into the booth. He was about forty, a little pudgy around the waist, with a receding hairline. He had nice eyes.

“Actually, I was expecting Teddy Jurczyk,” I said. “Do you know if he’s coming?”

Mahoney made a face, as if I was putting him out. “Look, miss,” he began, “I know you got a job to do, and I want to be polite and respectful. But can I ask you to please leave Teddy out of it?”

“I beg your pardon,” I said.

“You really upset him tonight,” said the coach.

“Is this about the basketball game?” I asked, incredulous. “You’re asking me to leave him alone because I put him off his game? Are you aware a fifteen-year-old girl is missing?”

Mahoney held up his hands to stop me. “Whoa, there,” he said, his face flush. He was trying to control himself. “I wasn’t talking about the game. I was talking about what happened
after
the game. You ambushed him outside the locker room. The kid came to me crying.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling like a cad. “Sorry about what I said, Coach.”

“Look,” he said with a little smile, “I like to win like any other coach. Heck, I start Teddy over my own son because I know he gives us a better chance to win. I guess that’s kind of obvious. But I care about these kids, you know. Win or lose. And this investigation has upset him.”

“But I haven’t asked him anything yet,” I said in my defense. “Just if he knew Darleen.”

Mahoney looked deep into my eyes. “It’s a school of nine hundred students total. Everyone knows everyone else. And they’re in the same homeroom, so, yeah, he knows her. Can’t you leave it at that? He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

I considered his argument, all the while trying to figure out how I would get the information I needed. Coach Mahoney seemed like a decent man, and I didn’t want to lie to him. But I wanted to talk to Teddy about more than his silky jump shot.

“Will you do me this favor, miss?” asked Mahoney, his eyes saying please.

I reconsidered. In light of the bus-ticket receipt, did I really need to dig any further? I was convinced, after all, that Darleen had run off to Arizona to shack up with some buck private. Why not let it go?

“Okay, Coach,” I said. “I’ll leave him alone.”

Mahoney was relieved and gave me a broad smile. He patted my hand and thanked me. “Now you’ll have more time to write your bake-sale and garden-party stories,” he said, piercing my heart.

I know he meant well, but I nearly slapped him.

“Coach,” I said finally, “sometimes it’s better just to say thank you and nothing else.”

Once Mahoney had driven off, Fadge joined me in the back booth. “What did he want?” he asked, slipping into the seat opposite me. To tell the truth, he didn’t so much slip as stuff.

“Oh, nothing,” I said. “He asked me to stop scaring his star player.”

“Teddy Jurczyk? What did you do to him?”

I waved off the question. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” I said. “The story’s over. It looks like Darleen ran off after all. I found a bus receipt in her room. One-way ticket to Tucson.”

Fadge pondered it a while, then suggested we go get a pizza at Tedesco’s.

“It’s only eleven thirty,” I said. “You’re going to close up early? What if you get a rush on penny candy?”

“Very funny,” he said. “Just for that, you can pick up the bill to cheer me up.”

He squeezed out of the booth and shuffled toward the front just as the door opened. I slid off the bench and looked to see who was delaying my midnight pizza. There, filling up the doorframe from floor to ceiling, stood Walt Rasmussen, looking like the Colossus, Helios, straddling the harbor of Rhodes. Okay, I’m embellishing, but he was huge.

“Hey, Walt,” said Fadge. “What’ll you have? A little cold for your usual, isn’t it?”

He shook his head and squinted in my direction. “Nothing for me tonight, Ron,” he mumbled. “I come to talk to that girl.”

My knees threatened to collapse beneath me. This was the man who’d shown off his ax-juggling skills for my benefit. I had no idea what he wanted with me, and I didn’t care to find out.

Fadge turned to look at me, mugged bewilderment, then told Rasmussen he could use the back booth. I wished he’d asked me first.

I was trembling as I retook my seat. If Fadge had trouble fitting into the booth, Walt Rasmussen almost ripped the table off the wall squeezing inside. His mammoth belly stretched the limits of the undershirt he wore under his open, checked flannel, fighting the edge of the linoleum table for dominion over the space. The wooden bench seat groaned under his weight, creaking in protest as he settled into a comfortable position. Folding his rough, red hands on the table between us, he towered over me, glaring in silence at me as he breathed through his nostrils like a horse. Unconsciously, I shrank deeper into my seat, and he appeared even larger.

“You wanted to speak to me, Mr. Rasmussen?” I asked once the silence had become too much to bear.

He grunted something deep and gruff that I took for a yes. Then he unfolded his hands and placed them flat on the tabletop.

“I saw that girl that day,” he announced. “Dick Metzger’s daughter.” His voice was rich and gravelly, and his small eyes peered out from his great ruddy cheeks at me, unsettling me at such close proximity. But I was determined not to blink or look away.

“Where did you see her?” I asked.

“It was along the highway. Route Five-S. She was getting out of a taxicab.”

“What time was that?”

“It was about four. I was in my truck, driving back from the feed store, when I saw her.”

“Did you notice anything else? Anyone else in the vicinity?”

He shook his head. “She got out, and the taxicab drove away. She looked put out. Annoyed. The road was empty at that hour, and it was already almost dark.”

“Did you stop to see what was wrong?” I asked.

“Why would I do that? It’s none of my business what her problems are. I just saw her on the side of the road, and I thought I should tell you about it.”

I couldn’t figure why he felt that way, but at least he was being friendly. For him.

“How far was she from home?” I asked. “Close enough to walk?”

“Only about two and a half, three miles,” he said.

“Three miles?” I gasped. “And you didn’t offer her a ride?”

“Like I said, it’s none of my business what her problems are. She looked healthy enough to me. It’s not like she was bearing burdens. She had no books. Just her lunch pail.”

I had to remind myself that Darleen was in sunny Arizona. None of this mattered. Or did it? I kept thinking back to the receipt. Still, I had a couple of more questions for him.

“What can you tell me about Bobby Karl?” I asked.

Rasmussen just stared at me. He didn’t move except to breathe through his nose. Then he said he didn’t know the first thing about Bobby Karl.

“His father’s farm’s on the other side of Dick Metzger’s. That’s all I can tell you.”

“You never saw him with Darleen Hicks?”

“Nope.”

“One last thing,” I said. “Why are you telling me this? I thought you didn’t like the idea of girl reporters.”

“I still don’t like the idea. It ain’t natural. But I thought I should tell you what I knew anyway. I felt bad about keeping it to myself when you come out to see me. So now I’ve cleared my conscience. Maybe you can print your story and help find out what happened to her.”