A Stone's Throw

by James W. Ziskin

  He seemed skeptical, but the urge to share his story was too strong. He cast his gaze to the tiled floor and continued.

  “She didn’t love me. At least not for long. That wasn’t her way. She was always looking to trade up for something better. Like she was standing on your back and lifting her head a little higher to see something else above the clouds. Then she wanted that. Nothing was ever good enough. She frittered away every dime I managed to scrounge on clothes and hair and shoes. Always saving up Green Stamps for some new outfit or cosmetics. Never on anything for me.” He was vexed, and not with me. “Nothing was ever enough for that girl. Suppers out, dancing, drinking. She didn’t get it that I had to be rested for work.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “And she never had enough of telling me I was no good. Loved making me feel small. Even when she was arrested for solicitation. One year after we were married. Can you beat that?”

  I clasped my hands behind my back and buttoned my lip. Our conversation had jumped the rails and fast. I wanted to get him back to answering questions, not pouring out his heart. I asked him if Vivian had pierced ears.

  “Pierced ears? Yeah, sure. Her and a friend did it to each other one night with a sewing needle. But that was a long time ago. Why do you ask?”

  “The woman in the barn,” I said simply.

  He glanced away. “I see.”

  “There was a second body. A man. Looks like it was a jockey named Johnny Dornan. Does that name mean anything to you?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t play the horses. As a matter of fact, I quit gambling altogether. Didn’t have the stomach or the pocketbook for it.”

  “What about Robinson? Know anyone by that name?”

  “Jackie Robinson. Brooks Robinson. Frank Robinson.”

  “Baseball fan, are you?”

  He shrugged.

  “Sorry. Not them,” I said. “So how did it end between you and Vivian?”

  “She was always hatching some new scheme to make money. I went along with a lot of her ideas, and got myself into all kinds of trouble. A swindle, a little robbery, maybe flexing some muscle for a guy who could help us later on. She had all the bases covered. And it was always me doing the dirty work. I got picked up a couple of times and even spent a couple of months in jail. All for some job she thought would set us up for keeps.”

  “Was it while you were away that she left?”

  “No. She didn’t leave me. She got sent away.”

  “Then it was you who broke it off?”

  He hesitated a brief moment before he answered. And then he sneered bitterly. “My mother put an end to it. She came to our place the day before Viv got out of jail and threw out all of her stuff. Right out the window into the alley. Then a friend of Pop’s came to change the locks on the door, all before Viv got out.”

  “What happened after that? Do you have any idea what she’s been up to for the past eight years?”

  “Not since she left. When she figured out her key didn’t work, she took up with some guy and ran off to Virginia or Maryland; I don’t recall exactly. Somewhere with a gambler by the name of Ledoux. I heard he played the horses and was bad news. But I figured Viv probably stuck with him just long enough to get out of town.”

  “And you never saw her again after that?”

  “Just once for about five minutes. She came to see me about three years ago. Maybe she was going through a rough spell, but that fresh face and gorgeous figure were gone.”

  “What did she want?”

  “Said she was in trouble, could I help her out of a jam? I didn’t wait to find out what it was. I threw her out.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Sometimes I think I could kill her. Strangle her,” he said as a matter of fact. “For all the pain she put me through. So many times I wanted to cry. Like a baby, you know.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “But when she used to say my name all sweet-like, I turned to putty in her hands.”

  “Sounds like you had it bad.”

  “Things are good now,” he said. “I found a group that helps me. I’m off the sauce, out of trouble, quit gambling, and I’m making a life for myself.”

  “Does that mean you’ve forgiven Vivian?”

  He rubbed the oily rag on his hands again, as if to wash them of her memory. “I’ll never forgive her.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The South End of Albany had received its death sentence and was awaiting the bulldozers and wrecking balls to carry out the execution. Forty city blocks, nearly one hundred acres of urban habitat, were to be razed to make way for the South Mall project in the next three years. Some of the working-class row houses had already been pulled down, and this was only the beginning for the area Rocky had dubbed “a slum.”

  I wound a roll of Kodachrome into my Leica and wandered through the streets for the next two hours, snapping photographs of the barber shops, tailors’ windows, pawnbroker emporia, shoe repairs, groceries, and pizzerias. I wasn’t exactly Cartier-Bresson, but I thought a series of storefronts and their signs made for an interesting thematic strain to follow. It would have been rude to take pictures of people, so I contented myself with the dark-brick tenements and swinging signs hanging above the doomed businesses.

  By the time I’d finished off five rolls of film, I felt a sadness for the place. Still bustling and alive, the South End seemed determined to live its last months with as much normalcy as its residents could muster. I stashed my camera and sat down in Mirabile’s Restaurant on Daniel Street near Public Market Square. The lunchtime crowd was in full force, and I wondered where these people would go for their spaghetti and meatballs once the block was demolished. I ordered some ravioli and Chianti to toast a farewell.

  I almost missed my appointment with the Little Titans, but I managed to snap a few frames of Tri-X of a young boy and his father. Both were wearing purple jerseys. The father’s was faded, its white numbers cracking and peeling, the result of harsh detergent, passing years, and an ever-expanding belly that tested the limits of the fabric’s elasticity. But it made for a good father-son photo.

  I stopped at the office and rapped out a one-paragraph masterpiece on the football physicals. Then I labeled my film for the lab and wrote the caption, “Titans, Big and Small, Ready for Season.” Feeling satisfied, I made for the exit, but Norma intercepted me on the way.

  “I’ve gone through the list of Robinsons once,” she said. “I managed to reach forty-two of them. I won’t bore you with the details, but no luck so far. The others didn’t answer, so I’ll have to try again later.”

  I asked myself how I might manage without her. She’d dialed about a hundred numbers and tricked forty-two of them into answering a phony question about horse racing. The answer, by the way, was Citation. The last horse to win the Triple Crown. God, if I spent any more time with Fadge, I was going to end up like one of those track rats.

  “There was one interesting call I should mention,” she said, interrupting my musings. “A man at Robinson’s High Life Tavern in Saratoga.”

  “Oh, my. I forgot to tell you I’d already spoken to him.”

  “He remembered you. Didn’t know your name, though. Now I suppose he thinks you’re with WPTR.”

  “Did he answer your question?”

  She nodded. “And then some. He sounded a little suspicious that two ladies were asking him about Johnny Dornan in as many days.”

  “Any new information?”

  “Just that he expected me to mail him the prize for knowing the answer.”

  “Well, is he getting it?”

  “He caught me off guard. I said of course we’d be sending a ten-dollar gift certificate for dance lessons at Arthur Murray’s.”

  I laughed. “Okay. Can you make the arrangements? I’ll get Charlie to sign off on the expense and deliver the certificate myself.”

  Mrs. Whitcomb was waiting for me on the patio at four o’clock sharp. She greeted me warmly, again with the kindly smile
, and invited me to have a seat. A waiter glided up to our table and poured me some tea from the silver service. It was dangerously close to 5:00 p.m., and I would have preferred something stronger. I reminded myself that I needed my wits about me if I was to make a good impression on her. But in the next instant, I was asking myself why I needed to make an impression on her, good or otherwise. Sure, I had spent the night with her athletic son, and had a big date with him for the gala fundraiser on Saturday. But so what? Was I expecting the wedding of the season—one to rival Audrey and Harrison Shaw’s—to come out of it? There was no reason to expect that Georgina Whitcomb would ever know about my hours of passion in her darling Freddie’s arms.

  “Are you all right, Miss Stone?” she asked, rousing me from my internal debate. “You seem distracted.”

  “Please pardon my rudeness,” I said. “I was trying to remember the questions I’d prepared for you.”

  “Never mind those, Eleonora. I may call you that, I hope. Lately I find myself wanting to call all young people by their given names. It’s a privilege that comes with age.”

  “By all means. Or you can call me Ellie, if you prefer, Mrs. Whitcomb.”

  Yes, I realized that the privilege was a one-way street. She could call me by name all she wanted, as she might a dog. But I was sticking to formality in return.

  “Let’s have a nice visit and a little nourishment. I’m sure our conversation will give you all you need for your article.”

  A second waiter rolled up with a cart overflowing with sandwiches, scones, preserves, and clotted cream. I deferred to my hostess, who indicated her selections with her index finger. I wasn’t hungry but chose a square of lemon cake to be polite.

  The small talk that ensued was entertaining enough. Mrs. Whitcomb had wit and charm to burn, but I remained on edge. I tried to ingratiate myself to her by stating my intention to donate twenty-five dollars to the fundraiser. What was I thinking? She smiled but said nothing. At length she noticed a young couple a few tables away suffering through an awkward date and regaled me with a story from her youth.

  “I came out in twenty-two, Ellie. And the very next summer my mother wanted to make a match for me. She had someone all picked out. His name was Jonathan. I wasn’t about to be trundled off at seventeen to marry some tongue-tied boy from Hotchkiss. I wanted to go to college and see a little of the world, too. What girl doesn’t want that?”

  “Indeed,” I said and immediately wondered who I had become. Indeed?

  “The boy in question was the friend of a friend of my brother’s. I managed to get word to him, and what do you know but he had no interest in me either. He had a girl he wanted to marry. So we hatched a plot. We would agree to our parents’ request and meet for tea, much as those two over there are doing.”

  “Did you end up marrying him?” I asked.

  “Patience, my dear Ellie, patience. Together, Jonathan and I both agreed to nix the match on the grounds that we hadn’t hit it off. It was a perfect plan. He’d be free to marry his girl, and I’d spend four years at Trinity College before settling down with a good man.” She stopped herself to make a correction with a small chuckle. “I still think of it as Trinity College, even though they renamed it Duke my sophomore year.”

  “What about Jonathan?” I asked.

  “As they say, the best laid plans of mice and men . . . We stuck to our script. All was going according to plan until Jonathan’s parents worked him over. After a weekend of high pressure, he lost his resolve and said he’d marry me after all.”

  “Oh, my. What did you do? Marry him?”

  “Not by a long shot. I disappeared for a week, stayed with a cousin in Philadelphia, and lay low.”

  “But how did you manage to avoid the marriage?”

  Georgina Whitcomb rocked back in her seat and allowed herself a smile of satisfaction. “Well, Ellie, I had one trick left in my bag. I knew the name of Jonathan’s beloved. She was a girl from a good family. Not at the top of the social register, perhaps, but good Methodist stock. I arranged a meeting with her and me and Jonathan at a fish-and-chips house in Cape May. It was all very cloak and dagger. But as soon as they saw each other, the deal was done. They sealed their union over fried fish and potatoes and tartare sauce. I was off the hook.”

  “I can’t exactly quote you on that for my story,” I said.

  “Of course not, Ellie. Jonathan and Anna are still fast friends of mine. Let’s say instead that I fervently wish all children, regardless of race or creed, to enjoy the same opportunity to succeed in life. And the first step on that journey is a good education.”

  Before heading back to New Holland, I paid a visit to Grossman’s Victoria on Broadway. It was nearly six, and I figured as likely as not that Lou Fleischman would be in, perhaps getting ready for dinner. As a matter of fact, he was sinking into an armchair on the front porch, nose buried in the newspaper.

  I interrupted his reading. He recognized me as the Jewish girl reporter, but he couldn’t quite put a name to my face. We’d only met once, after all. Once I’d prompted him, he warmed and promised he wouldn’t forget it again. I asked if he had some time to chat, and he invited me to join him for his evening stroll around nearby Congress Park.

  “I was hoping to speak to you some more about Johnny Dornan,” I said as we headed up Circular Street at a snail’s pace. Lou Fleischman was no Thoroughbred and complained of hip and foot pain as we walked.

  “You’re not the only one wanting to know about Johnny. I’ve been dodging a reporter from the Saratogian all week. And the Albany papers have been calling, too.”

  “I have an idea to get everyone off your back.”

  “How will you accomplish that?”

  “I’ll ask you a few questions, you’ll answer them, and then I’ll quote you in my newspaper.”

  Lou stopped in his tracks, right there on the sidewalk of Circular Street, huffed a couple of breaths, and told me I had to be kidding.

  “Not at all. Come, let’s keep walking, and I’ll explain.”

  He seemed unconvinced, but probably figured I could do him no harm if he refused to answer. We turned into the park on a footpath and strolled along in silence until we reached the World War Memorial Pavilion. He finally asked what questions I wanted him to answer.

  “First,” I said, “I’d like to know if you’ve been contacted by the sheriff’s office about the fire.”

  “Why would they want to talk to me?”

  “Those were your racing silks they found, weren’t they?”

  He nodded. “Yes. And I suppose I can answer your question. The sheriff came to see me on Saturday afternoon, but since it was the Sabbath, the hotel manager convinced him to come back on Sunday.”

  “Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “I saw you last Saturday. You weren’t keeping Shabbos. You were at the racetrack.”

  Lou blushed. “Okay, I confess. I’m not the most observant Jew. I like bacon and shrimp and working seven days a week. It’s a sore point with my wife, Rose.”

  “I’m not judging you. So what did the sheriff ask you?”

  Lou chewed on that one for a while, undoubtedly debating whether he should answer. In the end he did.

  “He came back Sunday and wanted to know if Johnny Dornan was missing. What could I do? I told him the truth.”

  “And did he ask you about anyone else by name?”

  “He might have.”

  “Did he ask if you knew a woman named Vivian Coleman?”

  “No.”

  I sensed a caginess in his answer. “Okay, Lou. Did he ask you if you knew a woman named Vivian McLaglen?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  Damn it. Was Lou holding out on me? There was still the same guarded tone in his answer, so I went over my questions again in my head, repeating them in hopes of finding the technicality he was hiding behind to avoid telling me the truth.

  “So no one named Vivian,” I said. “On Sunday. Did Sheriff Pryor perhaps mention someone named Vivia
n to you another day?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes, he did bring up that name. On Tuesday. Both names, now that you mention it.”

  “You’re a tough witness, Lou.”

  “And you’re a damn good inquisitor.”

  “So the sheriff came back to ask you more questions on Tuesday.” It was a statement on my part, not a question. Frank Olney must have done exactly as he’d promised and shared the names with Pryor.

  “Can I assume that Micheline wasn’t the woman in the barn?” he asked.

  “I can’t be sure. What did the sheriff tell you about her?”

  “Nothing. And I didn’t mention her name, either. Information is a valuable thing, Ellie. I learned a long time ago not to give it away for free.”

  “I have another question for you,” I said. “I’d like to know if Johnny Dornan had any enemies.”

  “What makes you ask that?”

  “The sheriff says this is a case of murder. The man who died in that barn was shot between the eyes before it burned down. And you told me yourself that Johnny wasn’t the most likeable fellow in the stable.”

  He toed a small twig on the cinder path with his worn shoe, then kicked it—after a fashion—into the grass. “You’re pretty well informed about what happened on that farm.”

  “I was there, remember? Saw the bodies. I was the one who discovered them.”

  Lou shuffled off down the path, and I followed.

  “That’s the Canfield Casino,” he said, stopping in front of a handsome Renaissance Revival brick building in the middle of the park.

  “I know. I’m attending a charity gala there Saturday night.”

  He chuckled. “Like I said, you’re well informed about everything. From Wham’s Dram and the fire at Tempesta to this.”

  “Does Johnny Dornan have any enemies that you know of?” I repeated. “Maybe Robinson.”

  “Robinson who?”

  “A name I came across. Never mind. So were there people who hated him?”

  “Who doesn’t have enemies? Johnny wasn’t any different. He had a knack for rubbing people the wrong way. But someone who’d want to kill him? I’m not so sure.”