by Fred DeVecca
“She’s dead, Frank,” Loomis said. “I hate to be the one to break that to you, but really, what else is possible?”
“All kinds of seemingly impossible things happen every day, Neil.”
“There’s about a one in a million shot she survived. If all the bounces went just perfect and hit her body in just the right places, or missed her completely, and her head was not under water for too long at any point, maybe, just maybe, she could be alive and breathing somewhere. Actually, the fact that the river was so high is a factor in her favor. A very small factor. It would kind of raise her above the danger, insulate her as it swept her along. There’s some small hope, Frank. But it’s very small and I’m not buying it. My advice? Consider her dead. That’s the kindest thing I can tell you.”
Time crept by. Numbness set in, but life went on. We were showing movies at the theater on weekends. Sarah had finished school for the year. Before Julie disappeared, Sarah had been talking about finding a summer job, but that idea had fallen by the wayside. Her obsessive searching for Julie slowed down.
I had a quiet dinner with Clara and Sarah on one of the first really hot days in June. We barbecued burgers out in the yard. Sarah whipped up a fresh green salad with an oil and vinegar dressing. Matthew was home for the summer from Oberlin, but he was never around. He was off with his buddies and had a girlfriend.
The Hill of Tears going home was a slow slog, but Marlowe’s joy at seeing me cheered me up. I tossed some sticks around the yard for him. The days were much longer now, and it seemed like darkness might never come. I was wanting it to come so I could bring a suitable end to the day and go to sleep.
Bringing Marlowe back in through the porch door, I checked the mailbox. Among the bills and magazines I never got around to reading was a thick, 9 x 12 envelope hand-addressed to me. I ripped it open with a paring knife.
Inside was a series of five sharp, clear color 8½ x 11 photos. They were from the day of the ill-fated film shoot. Together they made a progression, told a story. They were in sequence.
The first showed four figures sitting on the iron railing next to the river with dozens of others milling around, a very small section of the full panorama that day. Whoever shot these was good. He or she was focused right on Julie, with Frack directly to her left, Sarah to her right, and Frick on Sarah’s right. Jenna was in front of them, but Jenna is quite short, and the picture was shot from a high angle so she didn’t obstruct anything. The girls were caught mid-laugh, big grins, directly facing each other. Frick and Frack looked grim and hard at work, Frack gazing off to his right and Frick staring straight ahead.
The second picture was blurrier because there were two passing bodies caught in mid-motion, but they were off to the sides and did not block anything. There was an unobstructed view of the four figures on the fence. Not much had changed there, except Frack had turned so that his gaze was directed at Julie and his arm was coming up and captured at about her shoulder level. His arm was moving, thus creating more blur effect. Julie was still looking directly at Sarah.
The next photo was startling. It was like seeing that frame from the Zapruder film where JFK’s head essentially gets blown off. Frack’s arm was still blurry, now a little lower than shoulder height. Basically you could see Julie’s purple skirt and her leggings pointed out horizontally and only a tiny flash of her orange blouse, blurred like Frack’s arm. You could see her face too, barely, right at the edge of the frame.
She was falling backward, into the river.
The fourth picture was one of chaos. There were more people coming into the frame and they were in motion. Some were pointing, some clearly captured mid-run. All were looking at the river. You could see just the smallest piece of smudged color where Frick had been. He had jumped into the river, and this was all that was visible as he vanished from the frame. There was an empty spot where the two girls had been sitting.
The fifth and final was a wide shot of two bodies fighting the surge of the river. The figures were tiny. One was far ahead of the others and near the lip of the dam. The other was closer to shore but heading toward mid-river.
I knew that three bodies had gone into the river at this point, which meant that one of them had already gone over the dam. The two remaining bodies were Sarah and Frick. Julie was gone.
The empty spot where people had been perched on the iron railing was now concealed by the backs of many heads, some hoisted up on the concrete base of the rail.
Among them, clearly seen because he was dressed all in white with bells still strapped to his legs, was a guy looking, even from behind, indecisive. Me.
That was it. No note. No return address.
I stared at them. I got up and walked around the house, then went back and studied them some more. I tacked them up on the wall behind my couch, in sequence, at eye level. They were like stills from a movie. Maybe that’s what they were.
They told me one very important thing—Frack’s arm had moved up toward Julie’s shoulders just as she was about to fall into the river.
I didn’t sleep that night. The first thing I did the next day was try to find Frack.
Frack, Frack, where did you go?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Finding Frack
Finding Frack was not easy. I had no one to contact from the aborted Untitled Nicholas Mooney Project shoot. I never got any phone numbers. My only encounters with Mooney took place in bars, initiated by him. So that avenue was closed to me.
I didn’t even know Frack’s name. It was extremely doubtful that it was Frack. He and Frick both had been introduced to me as linebackers from UMass, but I wasn’t sure if that was meant metaphorically or actually.
A visit to the UMass Athletic Department website gave me the answer. There was a group shot of the football team followed by larger individual shots of each player accompanied by a quick bio. It wasn’t hard to find Frack. The photo showed a grinning, buzzcut, innocent-looking white kid. The caption read:
Frederick “Fritz” Frackman—6’5” 310 lbs—linebacker. Junior, communications major, Meyers High School, Wilkes-Barre, PA. This gentle giant has professional aspirations, if not on the gridiron, then maybe on the silver screen. Watch your back, Arnold. And he plays a mean guitar too.”
A phone call to the university was no help. Any and all information about students was confidential. School was out for the summer, so I wouldn’t be able to find him on campus anyway.
Or would I? I called Jerry McElroy, my old friend who covers sports for the Springfield Union. Jerry told me the football team never really stopped practicing. This time of year, they would be lifting and running once a day, and sometime later in the summer, they’d begin “two-a-days,” or two practice sessions each day. I’d have a good chance of catching him if I dropped by the gym or track.
Jerry made a few calls of his own and told me my best bet was to hit the track early in the morning. So, the next day, there I was, watching huge boys run around a dirt track at 8 a.m. as the birds chirped and a couple of older guys in shorts with whistles yelled at them.
There were dozens. They all looked pretty much alike, except some were black and some were white—although, big as they all were, few were as large as Frack. So I just looked at the most monstrous of the behemoths, searching for his familiar face.
I didn’t see it. I watched them run around the track a couple of times and still, I did not see it.
Then, while looking even more intently, I was tapped on the shoulder by a positively Brobdingnagian black kid. I turned and found myself looking into the face of Frick.
“Hey, Mr. Raven, what are you doing here?”
I reached out to shake his big paw. My hand was buried, just short of being crushed.
“Oh, hey. I was just looking for you guys.”
“How are you? Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yeah, fine. I wasn’t hurt really. You?”
“Yeah. The same. I’m okay.”
“Where’s your bu
ddy?” I asked. “Is Frack around?”
“The Frackster, man. I wish I knew. Dude’s vanished. I heard he left school.”
I told him I’d like to discuss all this further. He said he’d be busy until near noon, so we made an appointment to meet for lunch at the Amherst Brewing Company.
“I’ll buy you a beer,” I said. “You’re twenty-one, right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Coach won’t like it, but I’ll let you buy me a brew.” He looked me in the eyes, “I’d love to talk about that day. It was fucking crazy, man. And I haven’t talked to anybody about it yet.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
My Lunch with Frick
“So, what’s your real name?” I asked Frick.
We were seated in a pleasantly dark booth in the corner of the massive but mostly empty pub.
“Bernard, but I don’t mind Frick either. I kinda liked the Frick and Frack duo stuff. I liked that Frackster dude. He was my bro.”
“The school called him Fritz.”
“Fritz? I don’t know why they listed him like that. I never heard anyone call him Fritz. Maybe in high school. Here he was Frack. And I was Frick. We were buddies, a team.”
“I’m going to go with Bernard, if you don’t mind.”
“That’s totally cool, Mr. Raven.”
“Yeah. And you can call me Frank.”
“Awesome.”
Bernard was sipping a tall, frosted traditional ale. I was working on a root beer. He was just getting started on a twelve-course lunch spread. I had a grilled cheese with tomato and onion.
“How badly were you hurt?” I asked him.
“I was hurt but nothing was broken. Had a lot of bruises and cuts. And hypothermia. My head got clunked and they thought it might be a concussion, but it checked out okay. Good thing, because they don’t let you play for like forever if you’re concussed. They got a whole protocol you gotta follow. Thank God I wasn’t. You’re okay too?”
“I’m a lot older than you, but I guess I’m made of rubber. I got bounced around but no permanent damage.”
“Good. How’s that girl?”
“She’s okay.”
We paused while he vacuumed a side of french fries.
“Too bad about VelCro. Man, that’s all I saw on the TV for weeks. And to think I was right there when it happened.”
“And Frack?” I asked. “What’s up with him? Have you talked to him?”
“No. I haven’t seen or heard from the dude since that day. And he was my best friend around here. I’ve got some good buds back in New Orleans, but he was the guy here.”
“That’s where you’re from—New Orleans?”
“That’s my home. Way different from here.”
“You like it here?”
“It’s different, but I like it. People are good. Hate the snow.”
He started on the first of three cheeseburgers.
“What makes you think he left school?”
“I don’t know. Coach said he was gone. Haven’t seen him. I gotta move on too. No time to be sentimental, much as I like the guy.”
I marveled at the speed he was devouring that burger. “Where would he go? Did he ever talk about going somewhere? Some place he always wanted to visit?”
Munching thoughtfully, Bernard said, “He talked about New Orleans a lot, said it sounded cool. He wanted to play music, and he heard that was a good music town.”
“He was a musician?”
“He played guitar.” He paused, then added, “Or, well, he claimed he did. Dude was just learning, but he wasn’t bad.”
“What kind of music?”
“All kinds. He liked the blues. White dude wanted to sound black. Wasn’t too bad. He hung around with me, after all. Learned from me. Didn’t even own his own guitar though. Dude had no money, Mr. Raven. He came from a poor town in Pennsylvania. The only thing he had going for himself was his scholarship here, and now he’s blown that.”
I smiled. “Call me Frank.”
He thumped himself on the head. “Oh, yeah, Frank. Sorry.”
“So, how did you guys get hired for that movie gig anyway?”
Bernard took a long sip of ale before answering. “Frack always wanted to be in the movies. This director dude came to practice looking for big guys to be bodyguards and he and Frack hit it off. The guy promised to get Frack in the movie somewhere. Even said he’d get to speak a line or two, which would have been great since then he’d get paid more. And residuals too. He said he’d get residuals.
“Then he dragged me along. I didn’t care about the damn movie, but Frack wanted me around. Like I said, dude was my bro.”
He finished the third burger and began working on dessert—hot fudge brownie with vanilla ice cream. He was on his third ale too. Beer and ice cream together. He came up for air. This lunch was going to cost me a fortune.
“You think VelCro’s dead?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I still have to hope for the best.”
“Me too. I was raised to look on the bright side.”
Frick wiped his mouth with a napkin. Finally he said, “It’s a damn shame what happened. Dude should never have pushed her. I don’t know what got into him.”
“You think he pushed her?”
“I saw it.”
“I’ve seen pictures. That’s sort of what it looks like, but to me it’s inconclusive.”
“Dude pushed the girl. I saw it.”
“He raises his arm and it goes up near her chest, then she falls in. That’s all you see in the pictures.”
“Well, that’s what I saw too. But I know he pushed her.”
“Why haven’t you come forward about this?”
“Nobody asked me. And none of my damn business anyway.”
“Didn’t the police talk to you?”
He shrugged. “Sure. But I don’t talk to police. I don’t count them. I just told them I saw nothing. That’s one thing I learned in New Orleans. Police talk to a brother? Don’t tell them anything. You get instant amnesia. Besides, I didn’t want to get the Frackster in trouble.”
“Why would he push her? Did he have some problem with her?”
“No,” he said quickly. His brow furrowed. “I don’t know.”
“Could he have been doing something else and she just fell in? She was small. A good breeze could have knocked her over.”
Bernard raised his hand, as if to silence me. “I know what I saw. Dude pushed her.”
It didn’t make sense, so I persisted. “You were two people away. Sarah, who was right next to her, didn’t see anything.”
“All I know is what I saw.”
I finished my grilled cheese and asked, “Did you see anything else?”
“Yeah,” he said. “That girl was smiling when she fell in.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Nutting Girl Smiles
At home, I took the photos off the wall. Sitting on my couch, I held each one above my head, moving them about to change the perspective until they seemed to be circling me like ominous vultures. The third picture, the Zapruder still where Julie went overboard, was my main focus. Frick was staring straight ahead. He was not looking to his right, where he would have had a clear shot of what was happening with Frack and VelCro. His certainty about Frack’s pushing her was highly questionable.
There was more intriguing stuff in that third photo too. Julie was nearly out of the frame, leaning backward, falling. Her face was mostly obscured. But yes, there was the smallest hint of a smile on Julie’s lovely face if you really examined it. Still, it was hard to tell with her head at such an angle.
I was blind once and my vision is lousy. This is not a good trait for a detective to have, but I always made up for it in other ways, like being able to see things others could not. I did that by intuition, and by persistence. I never gave up on anything, back in the day.
I tacked them back up on the wall at eye level. I had to stick my face up close to the photo to really see what wa
s going on with Julie. I was wishing whoever shot these could enlarge that one further. My nose was almost touching the photo, and Julie’s face was filling my poor vision like the big screen in my theater. I was so close, all I could see were smooshed up colors. The image wasn’t even human.
I went to the West End for a drink. A root beer drink.
The root beer had a bite to it and all twelve seats at the bar were filled, one by me. Then the cute old couple next to me got up and left.
A tall, skinny Hispanic kid sat next to me and ordered a martini. I watched him play with the olive.
“You like the pix I sent you?” he asked.
Startled by his question, I took a closer look and realized it was Lorenzo, the kid photographer Sarah had chased down the river.
“ ‘Like’ is not the word I would use.”
“Let’s say, was your curiosity piqued by those pix?”
“An unhesitating yes to that question.”
He nodded. “Mine too.”
“How did you get them?”
“I had the best seat in the house—McCusker’s rooftop. I climbed the fire escape and hoisted myself up the last few feet. Had a perfect view.”
“You could sell those, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. They would pull in a bundle.”
“Okay. So don’t you want to make a bundle? That’s what you do, right? Sell pictures.”
“I’ve already sold a lot of pictures from that day. I’ve already made my bundle. Now I want to find out what happened to her.”
“What’s that to you?”
“I shoot famous people all the time. Mostly they’re assholes. I mean, sure they’re going to be assholes to me. But I mean, they’re assholes to everybody. I see them when they’re not ‘on,’ you know? Believe me, ninety-five percent of them are complete fucking assholes. But I liked that babe. There was something different about her. And I liked that other girl too. So I want to know what happened.”