To prove I was serious, I swiveled off my stool and examined the chewing-gum display opposite the counter: Wrigley’s Spearmint, Doublemint, and Juicy Fruit; Beech-Nut Peppermint and Pepsin; Life Savers of all colors and combinations; Adams Chiclets and, of course, Black Jack gum. I picked up a package of Black Jack and turned it over in my hand, examining the black-and-blue label, thinking of Darleen Hicks.
Fadge noticed and asked how my investigation was going.
“Nothing much so far,” I said. “She’s got some pretty weird neighbors, though. Last night I met the folks who live on either side of her farm out in the Town of Florida. Say, why do they call it Florida anyway?”
“I forget why. We studied about it in the seventh grade. Has something to do with Ponce de Leon, but I don’t remember.”
“Anyway, the one neighbor was almost seven feet tall,” I said. “The others were that strange Karl family. I suppose I could picture the son as a homicidal psychopath. And the giant was juggling a bloody ax for my entertainment. He’s a scary one.”
“That must be Walt Rasmussen,” said Fadge. “He comes in here a couple of times a year. In the summer, of course. He always gets a double banana split in a booth as far back as he can.”
“Let’s not aggrandize, Fadge. You’ve only got four booths.”
“He likes the last booth if he can get it, El, okay?” he sneered. My heart jumped; my brother used to call me El. “You can sit at the counter with the pimple-faced boys from now on.”
“You’ll always make room for me,” I said, pushing Elijah’s memory to one side. “You’d kick six double sundaes out of a booth for me, wouldn’t you, Ron? Even if I just wanted a glass of ice water.”
“Sure,” he smiled. “Next time, you’ll have your ice water in that little room in the back. You know, the one with the porcelain chair.”
We had a good chuckle over that one. Fadge’s sense of humor hadn’t progressed beyond the bedroom and the bathroom, but I didn’t mind. He was my favorite guy in the world.
“So what were you saying about Walt Rasmussen?”
“Nothing. Just that when he comes in, he orders a banana split and likes the back booth. Then when he leaves, he gets a quart of hand-packed ice cream to go. Butter pecan if we have it. Otherwise, coffee.”
“Friend of yours?”
“No. That man is friendless in the world. But he won’t let anyone else wait on him but me. Once, Tommy Quint asked him what he’d have, and Walt almost made him cry. Poor Tom. For some reason Walt puts up with me waiting on him. Maybe because I own the place, and someone has to take his order. He’s a funny one. Parks that pickup truck of his at the curb, climbs down, and lumbers in here in his muddy boots. And he always shows up late at night, around eleven or eleven thirty. Just before closing.”
“Why’s that?” I asked. “A vampire?”
Fadge shook his head and seemed to be thinking hard about his answer. “The kids stare at him, you know? They can be so mean, the little bastards. They stare at him like he’s some kind of freak because he’s so huge. They peep around corners, laugh with each other, point at him. And Walt just sits there in the booth, as big as Goliath, looking straight ahead and ignoring them. But you can tell it’s burning him up. Like maybe he’d like to squash those kids like bugs and be rid of them.”
“Or maybe wring their necks and chop up the bodies in the barn?” I said.
Fadge shrugged. “Imagine what it must be like to go through life having people point at you like you’re a sideshow attraction.”
I’d met the guy. I wasn’t feeling too much sympathy for the man who’d waved an ax in my face.
A horn sounded outside. It was Vinnie Donati from Ornuti’s Garage at the wheel of my Royal Lancer, which he’d just towed back from the Karl farm. I abandoned Fadge and ran out to meet Vinnie as if he were a beau picking me up for a date.
“All set, Ellie,” he smiled, as I climbed into the passenger seat. “Drop me back at the garage, and she’s all yours.”
“Thanks, Vinnie,” I said, flashing my best smile at him. “What was the problem this time?”
He slipped away from the curb and took a left at the corner of Lincoln and Glenwood. “Dead battery,” he said. “And some wiring went bad. Same old thing. This was a good car until it was totaled.”
“What do you mean, totaled? I asked Charlie Reese about accidents, and he swore there was only minor body work done on this car.”
“I’ll let you in on a little secret if you swear you won’t tell,” said Vinnie, giggling like an idiot. “This car was pulled out of Winandauga Lake last summer.”
“What?”
“You know Fred Blaylock?” he asked.
“I should. He’s the associate publisher at the paper.”
“Well, he had dinner and some drinks one night last August at Maraschino’s in Mayfield after the races in Saratoga. I heard he lost a hundred and sixty-two bucks. Anyways, to drown his sorrows, he had a few too many Old Fashioneds with his steak dinner and mistook the boat launch for Route Twenty-Nine on his way home. Drove right into the lake.” He laughed and slapped the steering wheel. “Poor car ain’t been right since.”
I glared at him. “Not funny, Vinnie!”
He swallowed his grin, knitted his brow, and cleared his throat. “Electrical problems,” he pronounced soberly.
“And that must be where the mildew smell comes from.”
“Most likely,” said Vinnie. “Consider yourself lucky, though. We had the car in the shop for at least a month after Fred Blaylock drove it into the lake, trying to make it right again. When we dried her out, the horn used to blow when you made a left turn. People on the street would look. Every time I took her for a test drive, I waved and smiled back at them so I wouldn’t look like an idiot.”
I noticed Mrs. Pindaro shuffling along on the icy sidewalk with her pug, Leon, on a leash doing his business, and I reached past Vinnie and blasted the horn. The dog yelped and leapt into a snow bank.
“What’d you do that for, Ellie?” he asked as if I’d doused him with cold water.
“Wave, Vinnie,” I said sullenly, crossing my arms and turning away. “You look like an idiot.”
I fumed, thinking of my boss, Charlie Reese. He’d assured me the car was all right when he’d given it to me a month earlier. (Someone had cut the brakes of my Belvedere, resulting in a crash that could have killed me.)
“Gee, Ellie, I’m sorry,” said Vinnie finally.
“Why didn’t you tell me this a month ago?” I asked. “This car’s been nothing but trouble.”
He patted my shoulder and told me not to be upset. “Come on. You didn’t really think they’d give such a nice car to a girl, did you?”
Theodore Roosevelt Junior High School squatted stubbornly on the corner of Division and Wall Street, flanked by the Lutheran church to the east and Porter’s Funeral Home to the west. Located at the bottom of Wall Street’s steep hill, a few blocks from the river and the Mill Street Bridge, the junior high was a hulking, five-story mass of grayish bricks, long since discolored by grime and soot. It was joined at the hip to a second, newer building that easily surpassed its companion in both size and homeliness. Large rectangular banks of steel windows were tilted open, venting excess radiator heat into the frigid winter air. The school had a drab, industrial look, like a carpet mill or a prison. A small annex filled half of the empty lot adjacent to the communicating buildings. The remaining blacktop, scarred with faded parking stripes, was fenced in with two rusty, netless basketball hoops on either end.
It was just after eight a.m. Two school buses were idling along the curb of Division Street on the north side of the school, their tailpipes chugging exhaust into the cold air. I parked on the flats of Wall Street on the west side of the prison yard, just opposite the cigar store, and made a dash for the school and the warmth inside.
The corridors were deserted, as classes had begun a few minutes before. I made my way down the dull terrazzo floor, looking
for someone to direct me to the principal’s office. A janitor told me I was on the right path.
“Good morning,” I said to the tall, middle-aged lady in a poodle cut with short bangs. Quite fashionable if your name was Mamie Eisenhower. Hers wasn’t. The Bakelite nameplate on her desk read “Mrs. Worth, Secretary.”
“I’d like to speak to a student,” I said.
“Is that so?” she asked, subjecting me to close scrutiny. “What about?”
“It’s a personal matter,” I answered.
“And who are you, if I may ask?”
“Of course,” I chirped. “My name is Ellie Stone. I represent the New Holland Republic.”
She rose and walked over to a desk to engage another middle-aged lady in a powwow. The second woman looked over her horn-rimmed glasses at me from a distance, shrugged, and said something to Mrs. Worth, who moved on to a frosted glass door marked “Ass’t. Principal” in black lettering. She knocked and, following a muffled grunt from the other side, let herself in. A few moments later, she reappeared and asked me again who I was and what I wanted.
“My editor wants me to do a feature on Teddy Jurczyk, the basketball star.”
The woman eyed me guardedly. “And who are you again?”
“My name is Ellie Stone. I’m a reporter for the Republic.”
She made her way back to the office with the frosted door and, after a minute, she returned and invited me to follow her. “Mr. Brossard will see you now,” she said.
I remembered that name immediately from the basketball game at the high school. He seemed like a decent enough man. I only hoped he hadn’t formed a bad opinion of me, based on the vomit in my hair.
“You’re Miss Stone?” he asked. “Do you remember me?”
“Of course,” I said, surely blushing. “What are you doing here at the junior high? Aren’t you the high-school assistant principal?”
“Oh, no. That’s Mr. Brooks. He was ill that night and asked me to fill in for him,” he explained. “All the administrators are required to chaperone basketball games from time to time.”
“Your lucky night,” I said. “You got the sick girl. Sorry about that.”
He smiled and waved it away, held a chair for me, then took his own seat behind his desk. I smoothed my skirt over my knees, wet my lips, and waited for an opening.
“So you’re here to do a story on our Teddy J.?” he asked, rocking in his chair. “He’s quite a phenomenon, isn’t he? And only a freshman.”
“I’ll say. It’s not often a freshman makes the varsity squad. And he’s the best player on the team.”
“Best player in the county,” he corrected.
“By the way, I’ve been wondering why the freshman class is part of the junior high and not the high school. That’s unusual, isn’t it?”
“Simple explanation,” he said. “The high school’s too small to house four classes, so the freshmen are here.”
“I see. So tell me more about Teddy.”
“Well, did you know he’s an honors student at the top of his class? Best scores in the school on the Iowa Tests. We think he’s going to be a writer someday. Brilliant in English.”
I smiled back at him for a moment, then I gave up on the charade.
“Yeah . . . Mr. Brossard, I’m not really here to talk about Teddy Jurczyk,” I said.
Brossard was confused. “Sorry?”
“I’m investigating the disappearance of a student of yours: Darleen Hicks. I believe she’s a ninth grader here.”
The change of gears had thrown him. He gaped at me, cocked and shook his head as if to clear out the cobwebs.
“I’m making general inquiries into her disappearance. Her mother is convinced she didn’t run off, as the sheriff believes.”
Now he was peeved. Brossard leaned forward in his chair and stared me down, as he might do to a truant student.
“What game is this, Miss Stone? Why the pretense of talking about Teddy Jurczyk?”
“I apologize. I don’t know why I said that.” Truth be told, the disorienting effect had been my intention. It’s an old Indian trick I use often when interviewing. He settled back in his chair, watching me, drawing out the silence to intimidate me. I really don’t mind silence; it gives me time to collect my thoughts.
“Yes, Darleen Hicks is a student here,” he said finally. “What is it you want exactly?”
“I’d like to speak to some of her friends and others who might know her. Her teachers, for instance.”
Brossard pursed his lips and tented his fingers as he thought it over. Then he shook his head.
“I don’t like the idea,” he said. “It would be very disruptive.”
“For the girls or the teachers?”
“Both. Did the paper send you here?”
“Actually, it was Mrs. Metzger, Darleen’s mother, who asked me to help find her.”
Brossard was softening now that the shock of my bait-and-switch was wearing off.
“I remember the day it happened,” he said. “It was a Wednesday, and her class went to Canajoharie to the Beech-Nut factory. I remember because it was also the day of the superintendent’s Christmas banquet. The entire administrative staff was invited to Isobel’s. I had ziti and meatballs.”
“That’s nice,” I said, wondering what that had to do with the price of tea in China. “About Darleen Hicks . . .”
“It is a perplexing case,” he said.
I crossed my legs and leaned forward. “In what way?”
“People don’t simply disappear. She either had a plan to run away or someone made plans for her.”
“Foul play?” I asked.
“What else?”
“You don’t think she ran off?”
“That’s the most likely possibility, but she would have needed help.”
“Money . . .” I offered.
He nodded. “And transportation.”
I mulled over his assessment for a minute then asked him again about Darleen’s friends. He frowned as he considered it.
“I still don’t like the idea of you talking to the girls. They’re young and impressionable.”
“You’re probably right,” I said, thinking I could easily visit Darleen’s friends on my own away from school. “What if we compromise? May I speak to a couple of her teachers?”
Brossard arranged for me to meet Darleen’s algebra teacher, Mr. Vernon, during his free period at ten a.m. Mrs. Worth escorted me to the newer building, passing through a communicating hallway on the second floor, and we climbed the stairs to the teachers’ lounge on the third.
“That’s him over there,” she said, pointing to a tall, balding man in a dark-blue suit, serving himself some coffee from the stainless-steel percolator. He was bent over about twenty degrees, searching for the cleanest sugar cube in the bowl to drop into his cup. Once he’d made his selection, he stood up straight and twirled a spoon through his coffee. Then he turned and spotted us in the doorway. He must have been warned of my visit, because he scowled. In fact, he produced the physical equivalent of a groan, making me feel as welcome as a sneeze. He trudged over to a worn armchair and placed his coffee down on a heavy wooden side table. Then he drew a handkerchief from his vest pocket and proceeded to dash it against the chair’s seat several times. At least that’s what I assumed he was doing. From my vantage point at the door, his large bottom blocked my view and any chance for a true eyewitness account.
“I’m afraid you’ll find he’s a pill,” Mrs. Worth whispered in my ear.
Her confidence surprised me, and I must have looked puzzled. Then she gave me a gentle nudge. “Go get him,” she said. “Girl reporter.” And she winked. No smile. Just a wink.
I still looked confused.
“Jordan Shaw was in my Girl Scouts troop,” she said. Then she turned and left.
I cracked a small grin back at her, though she didn’t see it. Then I made my way over to the seated Mr. Vernon. I stretched out a hand and introduced myself. Vernon neit
her accepted my hand, nor invited me to have a seat in the chair on the other side of the wooden table. I took it anyway.
“Thank you for agreeing to talk with me,” I said once I was seated, knees tucked safely together. He wasn’t looking.
“I didn’t exactly have a choice, did I?” he grumbled, lighting a cigarette.
I had no coffee, so I lit a cigarette as well, and we settled in for our chat.
“I’m investigating the disappearance of Darleen Hicks,” I began. “I understand she’s a student of yours.”
“Great work so far,” he said, looking away from me.
“Can you tell me anything about her?” I asked, ignoring his crack.
“What’s to tell? She was a rotten student with a miserable attitude. There are dozens like her here, all headed for jail or the welfare line.”
I studied him as he sipped his coffee. He hunched his shoulders and blinked his eyes rapidly as he raised the cup to his lips. I noticed the sprinkling of dandruff on the shoulders and lapels of his jacket, as well as some flakes trapped in the slicked-down hair of his head.
“What are you looking at?” he asked, and I shook the distraction from my head.
“Tell me about Darleen in particular,” I said. I had learned not to let the subject dictate the direction of the interview.
“I didn’t like her, if that’s what you mean. She was a silly girl who didn’t pay attention in class. She chewed gum incessantly. Used to stick it under her desk. Disgusting habit.”
“I see. Anything else you remember about her?”
“She failed fractions.”
“Why do you refer to her in the past tense?” I asked.
Vernon had tired of me. He sneered, picked himself up, and trod off out of the lounge. I was writing some notes in my pad, about to leave, when another teacher, a woman, approached me.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Are you inquiring into Darleen Hicks’s disappearance?”
Her voice was a crackling falsetto, her dress a baggy flower print. She was about sixty and smelled of rose water.
“My name is Adelaide Nolan,” she said, taking Vernon’s vacated chair. “Darleen was in my English class last year.”
Stone Cold Dead Page 5