Kiss Them Goodbye

by Joseph Eastburn

  “Well, announcing an authentic ballroom dance . . . at a nice hall somewhere in town. After this murder today, and this close call tonight, he might want something more civilized. Invited are: selected faculty, prominent citizens, and any suspects you want. Then on the gossip page, I’ll arrange for a small chatty paragraph—my friend Chris will do it—about the rumor that you will be in attendance.”

  Nick raised his eyes and let them bathe on this woman. “Let me sleep on it.”

  She stood up, took a step toward him, touching the smooth surface of his shoulders. “Let me sleep on it with you.”

  Fowler reached a hand up and ran it gently along her cheek. “I’m worried about you being involved in this.”

  She moved closer. “You can’t do it alone, Nick. I’m with you now.”

  He picked up his gun, walked to the door, and pulled the chain on. “I have to think.”

  45

  IN THE EMERGENCY room the next morning, Robby Cole was limping, walking around bowlegged, staring at the drab blue curtain surrounding Ballard’s cubicle. A small man with curly hair and gold wire-rimmed glasses stood scratching his bald spot, watching the sergeant.

  He was the same young man who, years ago, had handled Muriel Ballard’s divorce when he was fresh out of law school. Michael Lichtman now placed his briefcase down where the legs of the boy’s steel bed were visible from under the curtain. The blue material rippled slightly in the draft. He had yet to speak to the boy. Ballard was still asleep.

  Lichtman kept crossing his arms and staring at Sergeant Cole, who returned the stare. Finally he spoke. “The doctors have said repeatedly my client isn’t well enough to go home, yet you people are determined that he should, as sick as he is, now go to the state police station for further questioning. That is not only illegal, it’s inhumane.”

  “Mr. Lichtman, Cary Ballard is a suspect. Do you know what that is? I’ll spell it for you.”

  “Even a suspect has rights.”

  Sergeant Cole was standing with both hands on his thick belt. Marty Orloff was standing next to him, his back arched away from the wall, doing neck extensions. Cole signaled Lichtman away from the curtain that separated Ballard from the wide hallway of the emergency room. He hobbled a few paces. “Mr. Lichtman,” he began quietly. “Maybe in New York City, lawyers like to stick their noses where they don’t belong and distract everybody. The fact is, I have to question this kid. I don’t care where I do it.”

  “Why don’t we question him here?”

  “I intend to, but we are not going to question him. I am going to question him.”

  Michael Lichtman’s face fell in exasperation. “Sergeant Cole, I think it not only fair that I be present, it’s a virtual necessity.”

  Cole bent forward slowly from the waist, in pain. “For who?”

  “My client.”

  “Lichtman, do you know anything about this case?”

  The bushy head of curls was nodding emphatically. “I’ve been studying the reports, of course.”

  “Have you finished?”

  “Well, not every single document, after all—”

  “Then why don’t you get up to speed and let me do my job.”

  Lichtman shuffled the papers under his arm. “I insist on being present during the questioning.”

  Cole turned to another hefty policeman standing next to Orloff. “Would you escort Mr. Lichtman to the waiting area?”

  The policeman and Orloff each took Michael Lichtman under one arm, nearly lifting him off the ground. The tiny man’s face turned beet red and he began to flail his legs and talk excitedly in the hefty policeman’s ear. “I’ll nail you with a case of assault if you so much as touch me.” By now his shoes were skating above the waxed floor.

  “Ask him if he wouldn’t mind waiting just a few moments,” Cole said dryly.

  “Police brutality!” Lichtman yelled.

  Cole watched the wire-rims being yanked around the corner. He walked over to the curtain of Ballard’s cubicle and pulled it aside. Ballard’s eyelids were drooping but they were open.

  “You well enough to talk?”

  Ballard looked around the room, slightly dazed, wondering who Cole was. He looked up into the man’s dark, somber eyes and shook his head.

  “Come on,” Cole barked. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you tell me the truth, I’ll let you go home.”

  Ballard did. He stumbled through what he remembered from the moment he saw Gluckner chasing Janine. He left out the part about kissing her and dreaming he had burned his way onto the table of elements.

  He couldn’t remember much after being thrown into the backseat, the drug taking effect. When Cole began to describe the train station, flashes of memory came knifing back, shocks of light through a haze. He remembered holding Gluckner around the waist for an instant at the station. He remembered blacking out, being revived. He thought he recalled lying nearly unconscious, looking across a small room at Gluckner’s back. A tall schoolboy had his arms around him. That’s all he knew.

  Ballard’s account sounded true enough for Cole to arrange that the boy be released on his own recognizance, pending further interrogation. He could leave as soon as the doctor felt he was well enough.

  When the boy left the hospital late that afternoon, he found himself in the agitated presence of Michael Lichtman. He was forced to repeat everything he had just told Sergeant Cole.

  By the time Ballard was up in his own room relaying the events for the third time, Lichtman was still not satisfied. Not until the persistent and annoying lawyer’s sweaty hands were squeaking down the stairway railing did Cary Ballard feel a sense of relief.

  IT WAS DUSK. Cary stood in the doorway of his closet, staring up at something on the edge of the shelf above his hangers. It was a hat. It was black with a gold brim, and had the word “Cat” printed on the front. Ballard stared at it and a new wave of fear overtook him. It was Gluckner’s hat. He had seen him wearing it at the pep rallies when he wanted to seem truck-driver tough. Everyone in the school knew it was his hat.

  Ballard pulled the hat down from the shelf, ran a fingernail over the scratchy felt. He shuddered, feeling a swell of rage surge through his body. He knew his emotions had shifted. A kind of resolve crept into his face. He found himself staring out the window, wondering when it would be dark enough.

  MR. BENDLEBY’S GARAGE door sent up a mournful rasp when Cary lifted the door. He stood for a moment, listening to his breath as his eyes got used to the dark. He could just make out the handle of the shovel leaning against the wall in the corner by the workbench. He reached out and touched the smooth cold handle.

  IN THE FIELD behind Brookside, Ballard could feel the rye grass rub the side pockets of his tan jacket. In his left pocket he had folded Gluckner’s hat. On the far side of the field he brushed by the bough of a pine, wet with dew. About twenty yards into the grove, he struck the ground with the point of the shovel and found that it was soft enough to dig.

  All this time a car had been parked across the county road. It was hidden just inside the entrance to the school beside a white dilapidated garage where the wombats stored the lawn mowers for the west campus. When the woman behind the wheel saw Cary slip out the front door, she stepped on the gas pedal and coasted silently onto the dirt road behind the marsh that circled the edge of the field.

  She watched the boy lope awkwardly through the tall yellow grass carrying a shovel. She eased the car door shut as a light fog settled over the edge of the field. She felt the mist against her legs as she folded something into her hand, and had to duck under a pine branch, she was so tall. She stepped down on a floor of soft needles, listening. She heard the shovel strike a rock in the distance. She crept closer and positioned her body behind the trunk of a tree. She watched Cary put the shovel down. The boy was staring down at a hat. Her eyes fell also on the hat. She saw the boy pick it up, drop it into the hole, immediately shoveling dirt on top of it.
Ms. Coates placed the small flashlight back in her pocket, picked out the yellow branch of a poplar near where the boy was digging, memorized it and walked quietly back through the pines.

  46

  THE NEXT MORNING Ballard was sitting in his English class when another notice came. Mr. Toby looked down at the white slip of paper that had been shoved through the crack in the doorway by an underclassman. His eyes swept across the room and fell on Ballard. “It seems you’re wanted in the headmaster’s office,” he said.

  Ballard stood up, seeing the slightest glee appear in Mr. Toby’s features, just a feather of emotion. He edged past the master, excused himself, and staggered out into the hallway, in the grip of a nausea that caused the walls to blur as he edged down the stairs.

  In the headmaster’s suite, the secretary nodded amiably, gesturing Cary toward a heavy brown door. Cary took a breath and pushed. The door opened soundlessly. The headmaster rose up from his desk.

  “Come in, Ballard, come in.”

  As Cary sat down in the leather chair in front of the long desk, he thought he saw himself staring back from the burnished wood panels that surrounded the room. Dr. Hickey looked solemn. He sat back down at the desk, clearing the stack of papers away from the center of his blotter.

  “This is not a happy occasion, Ballard.”

  “I know, sir.”

  “I mean for you.”

  Ballard could see the reflection of the headmaster’s skull like a rare artifact perched on top of a spindle in the glare of the polished wood. “I don’t understand.”

  Dr. Hickey dropped his wiry eyebrows down and peered at the boy for a long moment. “Do you understand this?” He opened the drawer to his desk and pulled Gluckner’s hat out and tossed it with disgust into the middle of the blotter.

  Cary Ballard stared down at the gold brim smudged with dirt. He didn’t think he could speak, yet he heard words coming out of his mouth. “Where did you get that?”

  “A faculty member brought it in. It seems you were seen burying this in the woods. The hat of the last boy murdered. It doesn’t look good, Mr. Ballard.”

  “It was in my closet, sir. I didn’t know how it got there.”

  Dr. Hickey frowned at him, half smiling, as if the boy had made a ridiculous statement. “Of course you don’t. You didn’t know how your school tie ended up around the neck of one body and your white gloves on the hands of the other.” He suddenly stood up, adjusting his gray cuffed trousers up over his skinny hips. He pulled the door to his office open. He called out into the hallway.

  There was a flurry of sounds, the secretary whispering outside, then Ballard heard footsteps slowly nearing the door. Mr. Allington appeared in the doorway. There was an ironic expression on his thin lips. “Hello, Cary.”

  Dr. Hickey closed the door and turned to face the boy as both men stood stiffly against the wood panels. Dr. Hickey crossed his thin arms. “We’re going to have to notify the police.”

  Ballard nodded slowly, more out of weariness than anything else.

  Allington was shaking his head. “I think we should try to work this out among ourselves, Brandon.”

  “No!” Dr. Hickey said.

  “You asked me to take charge of this.”

  “I want the police to take charge of it now. This is over your head, Elliot.” He reached down onto his desk, picked up the receiver of his phone, then glanced at Allington. “Go ahead, just say it.”

  “It’s nothing, Brandon. Seven more students have withdrawn from the school this morning. The last thing we need is more publicity. And having one of our own boys arrested will—”

  “I don’t care anymore.” Dr. Hickey’s facial muscles were trembling. “I want an end to it. If we have to close the school, that’s what we’ll do.” He dialed the phone.

  Allington’s eyes drifted over to the boy. “I tried to shield you from this, Cary.”

  “Yes, sir,” he stammered.

  “Don’t worry.”

  The headmaster spoke into the phone. “Captain Weathers, please.”

  The two men both stared down at the floor as they waited for the voice on the other end of the line.

  CARY BALLARD SAW the booking sergeant’s distracted eyes keep looking away. The boy stood before an elevated, dirty, yellow Formica counter topped by a tall row of silver bars that framed the sergeant’s wide, sallow face. The face glanced at Sergeant Cole. “This is a detention?”

  “Yes. Since the suspect is underage, the captain has requested an investigative detention, to be signed by the magistrate. If probable cause is found at the hearing tomorrow, he’ll be moved to the state juvenile detention center until trial.”

  “So this is one day at most, right? The kid’s a minor.”

  “Correct.”

  “What about bail?”

  “Let him call his mother.”

  The man asked Cary his name, address, age, occupation, social security number, and made him empty his pockets.

  Sergeant Cole stood near the desk, his hat pinned under his arm, still sore, his weight shifting from one leg to the other. A woman with bleached blond hair was typing every word the booking sergeant said. Finally the man behind the counter pushed the report away from his belly, stared off at what Cary realized now was a television. The man was briefly amused, then looked back at Cary, shrugged, and told him he could make a phone call.

  Cary Ballard dialed his mother and let it ring. She picked it up on the seventh ring.

  “Hello?” Her voice was flat.

  “Mom, it’s Cary.”

  There was a pause. “What’s the matter?”

  When he told her he was being thrown in jail, she screamed. Cary started crying. He had held up well until now.

  “Do you have any idea how much that lousy lawyer has cost me already? Do you?”

  “Will you stop yelling at me? Come and get me.”

  “Your father didn’t leave me a cent, kid. How do you expect me to pay for all this? Huh?”

  Cary didn’t know. She was still ranting when he was tapped on the shoulder. A guard threw a hand in the direction of a long yellow corridor. Ballard could hear his mother’s voice begin to sob through the earpiece.

  “Come get me,” he yelled. He hung up.

  The man led him down the hallway, where with each step the lighting grew dimmer. Cary started to panic, a terror building inside. They turned farther into a maze of more bilious yellow hallways. Strange faces. Eyes staring at him—making him cringe. He hugged one wall when a scrawny hand came out to grab him. He rushed to catch up with the guard’s dull footsteps. They stopped in front of an empty cell. The man gestured him in. The door echoed when it shut. Footsteps retreating. Then silence.

  For several minutes, Cary sat breathless, still as a statue, listening to bar doors slamming, men’s voices in the distance. He was cold. His mind was a blank. It occurred to him that he wanted to die. He would stop breathing, crush his skull against the wall, anything to be released. He had to die. His life was an endless torture. There was nothing that mattered anymore. He stood up, slowly grabbed two yellow bars in both hands, his breath quickening.

  He threw his head forward and bashed it against the steel. A shock of light, then specks twirling in the distance, a maelstrom of soaring falling dots of fire, like a flock of birds against the twilight, swooping down, flattening out to fly overhead. Then blackness. Then a face. Eyes. Over a black scarf. There it was. It would never go away. It would always be there to taunt him.

  Cary hit the cell floor.

  He felt the bump on his forehead. He closed his eyes. There was the face again. He suddenly found himself driving his fists at the image, tearing his fingernails across the face, gouging the eyes. He started screaming. “Leave me alone! Leave me alone!” He was kicking, scraping at the face, in a free-fall of rage, trying to tear the face from his mind.

  The guard appeared through the bars. He saw the boy now lying on his stomach, pounding his small fists against the floor.

&nb
sp; “Shut up!” he yelled. “One more sound out of you and we’ll put you in the basement.”

  Cary didn’t even hear the man’s words. He saw the face in his mind moving quickly now. He could feel his heart beating against the cement floor as the face receded into the distance. He blinked, opened his eyes, noticing the dirty floor under his chin as if it was sacred ground. He reached his hands out. When they touched the cold floor, he knew. Something had changed.

  47

  NICK FOWLER RAPPED on the screen door. It rattled against his knuckles. He dabbed the bruises on his jaw, winced, opening his mouth slowly, the pain still with him. A small face appeared behind the screen. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Pullen? It’s me. Nick Fowler.”

  The door was unlatched and swung open. “Come in, Lieutenant.”

  He stepped in. “This is unofficial now, Mr. Pullen. I’m no longer with the police force, but still working on this case.”

  The little man was peering up at Fowler with a fierce look on his face. “I don’t want my name in the paper anymore, is that understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right then.” The elderly man led Fowler through a small kitchen, in need of paint, dishes stacked in the sink. They moved silently through a hallway into a dark living room. He pointed at a battered recliner next to a couch. Nick sat down, looking around at the old heavy furniture, covered in wine upholstery and faded macramé doilies. The windows were encased in sheer white curtains, all covered with dust. There was a dank smell in the room. Fowler watched the old dance instructor seat himself nimbly on the couch.

  “When you were mentioned in the article, Mr. Pullen, it said you have been teaching dance for . . . ?”

  “Nearly half a century, young man.”

  “Have you ever taught dance to any of the faculty of Ravenhill School?”

  “Of course. You think this town could sustain a dancing school? I get a few locals, but for the most part, it’s faculty wives.”

  “Mostly women, then.”

  “Occasionally I get a master. I had to teach them all the basics for the Golden Jubilee two years ago.”