“No, I am not a cop. The headmaster asked me to look into the mystery, I guess, one last time. Put it to bed, so to speak.”
“Well, I’m not the guy you want to talk to. I had a doctor’s appointment that afternoon. Really frosted me at the time. We had plans to do some exploring; that’s what we called it, crashing through the woods like jungle hunters. Ned Sparks told me he found something he wanted to show us, something important.”
“What was that?”
“He didn’t say, just looked mysterious and said, ‘Like, wait and see.’ I said, ‘Come on Ned, you can tell me.’ But he wouldn’t. Then they all disappeared and I never did find out.”
“Any guesses?”
“With Ned it could have been anything, anything from a fox’s den to a dead horse. Actually, we did find a dead horse one time. Big day for us.”
Frank heard the static on the phone begin to stretch into longer intervals and knew he would lose Blazek any moment. He thanked him and hung up. He looked at his watch. He had ten minutes to meet Rosemary for lunch.
Chapter Thirty-three
Frank met Rosemary on the parking lot. It had turned warm and his shirt clung to his back. He had to walk from the campus to the restaurant. She drove. They took a booth in the corner and ordered.
“Anything?” he asked.
She removed a notebook from her purse and flipped through its pages. “The number five keeps coming up. Never four and that’s significant. Even after twenty-five years and the fact that only four boys went missing, people involved still say four or five.”
“Anything else?”
“Susan Banks is the daughter of a Mrs. Gardiner, the former librarian, who believed that our Luella Mae, the woman with the movie starlet body, and probably proclivities, might have been involved sexually with one of the senior students. I gather she would know if anybody did.”
“That jibes with what the ex-husband said, only he thought there may have been multiple affairs. I think he has an image of his wife as a latter day Marlene Dietrich and the Scott Academy Upper School as the Eighty-Second Airborne.”
Rosemary raised her eyebrows. “The what?”
“Sorry, guy stuff. The stories coming out of the Second World War had it that the movie star started with the commanding general of the Eighty-Second, Gavin I think, and worked her way through the entire division, or nearly so. All exaggerated, of course.”
“Exaggerated or not true?”
Frank shrugged.
“Men,” she muttered.
“There seems to be a strong feeling that if five, not four, boys went into the woods, Brad Stark was one of them.”
“Susan Banks said as much as well.”
“The other thing that bothers me is the time. Sam Littlefield drove a van into Baltimore and back every Saturday during the school year and had the run timed almost to the minute. He says the boys went into the woods at one thirty or one thirty-five at the latest. I’m inclined to believe him and not Luella Mae. And her husband says the same thing. He thinks she set the time at two to protect someone, but he didn’t know who. She was pregnant, by the way.”
“My, my, the plot thickens. That’s what writers say, isn’t it?”
“Not if we can help it.”
“Did you know about the DISH?”
“Say again.”
“Detention Study Hall—DISH. Apparently students in trouble had to go to this study hall on Saturday. Stark had to.”
“Never heard of it. When I was a student, if you received demerits you went out to the school on Saturday and worked, shoveling coal, raking leaves—things like that. What time did the DISH start?”
“I don’t know, but it would be important to find out.”
Frank shuffled through his notes. Their lunch arrived and they ate.
“We said there were two what ifs,” she said. “So, what if the time set at two could be earlier and what if there were more than four boys in the woods. It looks like that is exactly what we need to explore.” She cocked her head. “Oh golly, you know, my heart goes out to the families. That poor Mrs. Sands, all she wants is some kind of closure. She is so afraid all we will do is stir up everything again and leave her with her hurt.”
He nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Here’s what we need to do. This afternoon I’m scheduled to interview Stark. Instead of asking him what he remembers, I will go after him. You can go back to the archives and find out whatever you can on the DISH. Do they have old rosters? I doubt it, but you never know—things like that.”
“I can, but I can’t help you much past late afternoon. I’m expected home. Previous engagement….”
“No home cooked meal after all.”
“I’m afraid not.”
He hadn’t expected this. He was beginning to be comfortable with their relationship. He couldn’t complain, of course, he had no call on her, but he wondered. Had he said something? Did she resent the Marlene Dietrich remark? He didn’t know why, but he felt disappointed. He pursed his lips and cocked his head and waited for an explanation. None came. She smiled and squeezed his hand and they left together.
“Tomorrow, ten o’clock?”
“I’ll call.”
“Call the hotel, and if I’m out, leave me a message. My cell phone is acting up. I’m going to turn it off and tonight I’ll try recharging the battery.”
She waved and drove away. He watched the car disappear.
***
“The ID is official,” Phelps, said. “You get hold of Smith and tell him.”
“Lieutenant, I don’t think we should do that. Once he knows we have a body, he’ll start covering his tracks.”
“Ledezma, he’s had four years to cover his tracks. What’s left to cover?”
“Look, I know this guy. He thinks he’s pulled it off. He thinks we don’t have his wife and can’t prove anything, no corpus delicti, but if he knows we do, and can match the bullet hole to his gun, well, he’s off to Brazil.”
“He’s not going anywhere and there is no way we can positively match the hole in that skull with his gun and you know it. Go tell him and then see what he does. That will tell us a whole lot more than saying nothing.”
Ledezma slouched out of the lieutenant’s office. “Let’s go,” he said to Pastorella.
“Go where?”
“Smith’s house. Lieutenant says we have to tell him his wife’s body’s in the morgue.”
There was no answer at Frank’s house. The two men walked around to the back and peered in the windows. Nothing. They went next door and rang the bell. A pretty woman Ledezma remembered from his previous trips to the neighborhood answered the bell. He vaguely recalled her as being a retired church organist. She did not look like one at the moment. She wore a bikini top and a towel around her middle that he supposed covered a matching bottom. She looked to be about fifty and in very good shape. She told him Frank Smith left town for the weekend.
“Weekend ended Sunday, he’s not back?” Now he understood why Smith hadn’t reacted to the diving crew Monday. He’d half way expected him to come out and watch, but then figured Smith might hunker down and wait for him to come to the door. He wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, only now it turned out it didn’t matter after all.
“No,” she said, “he called and said he’d been delayed and would have to stay over.”
“Stay over? Where is he?”
“He went to Baltimore for a high school reunion.”
“So he hasn’t answered his phone or anything since last Friday?”
“Wednesday, I think. He left early to visit his daughter.”
“You don’t have a phone number where he can be reached, do you?”
The woman looked at him suspiciously. Ledezma showed her his badge.
“Oh, now I recognize you, you’re that policeman who’s investigating Sandy’s disappearance. Are you any closer to solving that mystery?”
“Yes, ma’am, we are,” he said. “The phone number?”
&nbs
p; “I’ve got it right here. I called him.” She looked embarrassed, “When you all were dragging the lake or whatever it was you were doing.”
“He call back?”
“Nooo….That surprised me a little, you know. He’s a wonderful man and, well, I guess he was busy with his friends.” She went inside to retrieve the number.
“You hear that, Pastorella?”
“No, what?”
“She called him about the gun in the lake.”
“So?”
“So, we should check her out. Maybe she is more than just a friend.”
“You think Smith and her was—”
“Shhh….”
The woman returned with a Post-it note with Frank’s cell phone number on it. He thanked her and they walked to the car.
“Lucky break,” he said. “Smith is out of town. He went to Baltimore for a reunion or something. We can’t tell him anything.”
“You got a number.”
“I got a cell phone number, but the lieutenant doesn’t know that.” Ledezma felt very pleased with himself. Let the bastard squirm, he thought. “First thing tomorrow, we check out this woman. With a body like that, you have to suspect something at least. It’s going down, Dom.”
When they got back to the office and Ledezma left to use the lavatory, Pastorella retrieved the slip of paper with the phone number on it from the trash can where Ledezma had dropped it. He put it in his pocket. He liked his partner, but he liked his chances of staying on the force as a detective better if he played ball with the lieutenant. If the lieutenant wanted Smith to know about his wife’s body, then he would see to it that he did. He looked over his shoulder at the restroom door and dialed the number.
Chapter Thirty-four
In a disorganized world, Rosemary valued order above almost everything else. That is why she immediately liked Elizabeth Roulx. Elizabeth showed her how the files were arranged, how the photographs and documents were cross-indexed, and the ease with which she could retrieve information.
“Mr. Smith said something about how you might be working on his project.” Rosemary let the his go. “I found these, since he stopped by.” She pulled some yellowed newspaper clippings from a folder. “It seems someone had this folder checked out on Monday. I wonder who.” She consulted her computer screen. “Ah, Judith Stark had it. What do you suppose she wanted with it? Anyway, it’s a complete account of the story for the week following the boys’ disappearance.”
Rosemary gingerly opened the brittle newsprint and read. She did not find anything new in the earlier reports. She had missed the part about the heavy rain that fell the night of the disappearances, which explained why dogs were unable to turn up anything the next day. By the second week, investigators seemed to have gotten desperate and called in a psychic. The woman, who called herself Sister Rosanne, would only say, “The earth just swallowed them up.” No news there.
“Tell me about DISH,” she said.
“Detention Study Hall. What do you need to know?”
“How did it work? Who ran it? When did it start, anything.”
“Well, it replaced work parties. The school’s lawyers told the administration that their liability insurance probably would not cover any damages that might be awarded if a student were injured in one of those work sessions, or the premiums would skyrocket. Either way, we didn’t need the publicity attendant on a lawsuit like that, and we would have gotten one. It’s a litigious society now. So we ended the practice of putting the kids to work and substituted a study hall. Not as punishing, but it did cost them a Saturday. We still run it.”
“I know it’s asking a lot, but by any chance are there any documents, rosters, things like that in the archives? We’d like to know who had DISH duty that day.”
“You know, you’re in luck. Normally we don’t save that sort of thing, but the man who started collating the material that eventually became our archives thought that day so important he saved everything, at least everything surrounding the event. I think he thought he might write a book. That’s an irony, isn’t it? He won’t, but Meredith Smith will.”
“Might. That’s not been established. He’s concerned about the families having to relive the pain and the publicity.” Rosemary said the words knowing full well that she and Frank had never discussed the idea of the book one way or another. She wondered when she had started thinking of herself as his confidante and partner.
Elizabeth Roulx put a stack of documents in front of her. She sorted through them. The roster for Detention Study Hall, entered in pencil, had faded significantly, but she could make out most of them. She only recognized two, but those two made a huge difference in the way she and Frank needed to think about their next steps. She tried calling Frank on his cell phone then remembered he’d turned it off. She left a message in his voice mail anyway, just in case, and called the hotel. She left him the same message and asked him to call her when he could. There didn’t seem to be anything more for her to do at the archives. She thanked her host and left. She had some unfinished business to attend to in town.
***
Pastorella tried the number a second time with the same results. “Leave a message at the tone,” an electronic voice dictated. Ledezma would emerge from his afternoon routine at any moment. He left the message. If the lieutenant asked, he could always say he did his best.
***
Brad and Judith Stark sat on a damask-covered sofa across from Frank. He had not planned on interviewing both of them and wondered whose idea it had been for them to make it a joint meeting. Surely Judith Stark couldn’t add much. As far as he knew, Judith Stark had no direct information to offer at all. He soon found out why she joined her husband. The moment he began pressing Stark on whether he had in fact been with the other boys that day, she quickly interrupted with a question of her own.
“Are you intending writing this in a book? If so, you will need releases from all the persons named in it. Brad and I may not grant you one.”
“Releases? You’re a bit premature on that, Mrs. Stark. But yes, I know about the need to cover my publisher’s reluctance to pay for lawsuits. If I need them I will certainly be back for them, or I shall so completely fictionalize the events that there can’t be any. Now—”
“I just thought I’d let you know that, Mr. Smith. Even fictionalized might draw a lawsuit. That could be costly to you personally, couldn’t it?”
“No, not really, Mrs. Stark. Unless the person suing decided to be particularly difficult. But I don’t anticipate—”
“I understand some authors pay their sources for their information and their release.”
So there it was. The cunning Mrs. Stark had a pecuniary mind-set. He looked around the small apartment, at the clutter of too many people living in close quarters, and wondered what she had sacrificed to enable her husband to take the job at Scott. She stared at him with cat’s eyes, the smallest hint of a smile on her face.
“Brad has very important new information that he can give you, don’t you, dear?”
Stark twisted around in his seat. “What are you talking about? I’ve told this story a hundred times. It’s a matter of public record. There’s no ‘important new information.’”
“That’s right, dear. He’ll have to pay for what we have.”
Frank did not know where this was leading, but he knew he’d lost control of the conversation. “We now know that there were five boys who went into the woods that day and you were one of them.”
“I already told the cops and anyone else that would listen. Yes, I was with Bobby, Ned, Tommy, and Ted. We were playing near the woods. I had to leave and go to Detention Study Hall. The chapel clock struck two when they went in. Read the reports, read Mrs. Parker’s statement. At two o’clock I was sitting in a desk in Main, in the study hall.”
“We have information that Mrs. Parker lied.”
“Mrs. Parker lied all the time. But not about that.”
“Why do you say she lied all the tim
e?”
“Oh, now that’s a whole other story. Mrs. Hot Pants Parker cheated on her husband with the older boys. Everybody knew about it. She had a different favorite every year. Boy toy. That year, it was Mr. Wonderful, the once but no longer heroic Dexter Light. She was with him in the woods that afternoon.”
“And that relates to the time change how?”
“I don’t know. Who cares, anyway? They’re all gone. My friends, Light, Hot Pants, everybody, all gone and forgotten, or should be. You should let this go, Smith. Hundreds of people have tried to figure out what happened back then and can’t. You think that your experience as a writer gives you some edge over professionals, but it doesn’t. Fiction isn’t reality. And then there is your age. I mean with your memory….Anyway, I think you’re wasting your time here. I have nothing to add to what I’ve already said.”
“That’s right, dear. Wait until he comes up with an offer. We’re thinking mid-six figures,” Judith Stark said and tossed her head, her smile now a Cheshire grin.
“I hate to disappoint you, Mrs. Stark, but there isn’t going to be any payday, now or ever, on this case.” Frank stood to leave.
“Very well, but you might want to think it over. If Brad ever does talk, someone could get very rich.”
“Judith, what the hell are you talking about?” Frank thought Stark seemed genuinely confused. Apparently, Judith Stark liked to play games. He guessed she could be a very dangerous person in the wrong circumstances. He let himself out and descended the steps to the ground level. He could hear them shouting at each other but could not make out what they said. He stopped at the apartment building’s entrance and listened. He thought he heard her say something like, don’t be stupid.
Good advice.
Chapter Thirty-five
Rosemary shut off the ignition. The Buick’s new car smell had faded into something she thought of as “Early Frank.” She sat behind the wheel biting her lower lip and studying the brightly striped awning shading the restaurant’s entrance. She’d spent more time in eateries in the last few days than she had in the last three years. So much change in so little time. She rubbed the now vacant place on her left ring finger. That would take some getting used to as well, but she had to start sometime. Now she needed to take the next step, which meant shedding herself of a major portion of her old life. Bart would be in there, waiting. Would she be able to do it? They were old friends. He’d understand.
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