by Peter Ponzo
was lying on the table by the window. I had pushed it aside to eat my lunch, a salad plate with cottage cheese and a terrible French dressing. But the cafeteria was buzzing and everybody seemed to be poring over the front page of the Chronicle.
Oh, I should mention that the black suit asked me to come back to work at the mill. I knew he would. Who else could run the computer?
Anyway, everybody was talking about the body in the creek.
"Unrecognizable, they say."
"Pieces here and there - bloody awful."
Then I heard Buck. The black suit was at the next table with his buddies, grinning and coughing between drags of his cigarette.
"... pink swimsuit, torn right off ... bet she was raped ..."
It was just the kind of moronic thing he would say.
Pink swimsuit? Did he say pink?
I looked again at the headlines. Where in God's name was Miller's Creek? Didn't it run across that old dirt road the other side of Benton's meadow, across Blair Road, on the way to Gobles? Then it was close to ... to Cleaver's Pond.
I guess I just stared at Buck with my mouth open because he stared at me then grunted then looked away and started talking again to his buddies.
"What was that broad doing there anyway? No place for a woman ..."
I remember getting up from my chair, looking down, seeing the headlines again and sitting down. I read the story from beginning to end, twice.
A young woman's naked body was found yesterday, Tuesday, mutilated beyond belief. She had worn a pink swimsuit with ruffled collar and although no definite identification had yet been made, it was reported that a Miss Constance Fenton was missing. A close friend confirmed that Miss Fenton did, indeed, own such a swimsuit. All the tenants of the Mayflower Apartments had insisted that she had absolutely no enemies. "She was a lovely girl ... so full of life ... adored by all."
I found that I had difficulty breathing and was starting to sweat. I jumped up from the table and stormed across the cafeteria, knocking chairs as I went. Buck Tormin stopped laughing. I think everybody turned to watch me leave and I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks.
Before I knew it, I found myself at Cleaver's Pond and for the umpteenth time in my life I found the tears rising. I couldn't hold back and they ran down my cheek and that made me angry. I sat on the rock, chin on my knees, and stared at the sky reflected in the water. When I closed my eyes I could still see her lying in the sun, that crazy smile on her lips, the silly ruffled collar, the smooth pink -
Damnation!
I jumped up and ran into the bush. When I reached Miller's Creek I followed it upstream until I saw the clearing, saw the trickle of water flowing from the hole in the rock, peered through and saw the pond, my pond. That's how she got in, and how she got out without my seeing her leave.
I leaned against the wet rock and just sort of grinned. What a neat gal. She pulled me into the water, swam to this hole, this very hole, and vanished.
Damnation!
She was dead, my girl, torn apart by some bastard. Who would do a thing like that?
I could feel the anger.
Did I call her my girl?
I'd find the bastard who did this.
I retraced my steps, back along Miller's Creek toward Blair Road. Nothing. I went back to the clearing once more and followed the creek.
There! A footprint in the muddy bank. Two, three. My God, there were dozens of prints!
I collapsed on the ground. No killer's trail; the police had been here, everywhere. Their tracks covered the ground.
I walked back to Blair Road.
What could I do? Did I really expect to find a clue that the police had missed? Did I really expect to track down the bastard who did this?
When I got home from work on Friday, to my rooms in the basement of Mrs. Harris' house, I spread out the papers on the table and tilted the lamp shade so I could read them all. I had the Chronicle stories, three of them, including Wednesday's initial story. There was a story from the country paper out of Dunnborne. And of course the pile of notes I had made - and a printout of the police report.
It had been pretty simple to get into the police computer. The stupid buggers had used police as the password. Not too bright. I had extracted all the files I could find there.
It seemed like a lot of information lying on the table, but it was nothing. Nothing.
I had talked to every farmer along Blair Road. Nothing.
On Sunday I'd walk to the end of Blair Road, along the county line to Gobles and talk to her family. Her name was Connie ... Connie Fenton. I'd talk to Connie's family. I'd talk to all her friends. Did she have friends? Yes, everybody had friends. Everybody except Terry Cleaver.
But I needed time and space without interruption.
The next morning, Saturday, I quit my job. Buck Tormin bitched, but didn't seem particularly concerned. That made me angry. Just let them try to find a goddamn replacement.
On Sunday I walked to the end of Blair road.
"Are you a friend of Connie's?"
I was taken aback. She, Connie, looked just like her father.
"Yes ... uh, no, not exactly." I didn't know what else to say.
"Well, come on in anyway."
Mr. Fenton backed away from the door and I went in and looked around. It was a small room with wooden chairs and a table with a gigantic bible and a fireplace smeared in black soot and a whole slew of faded brown pictures just tacked to the wall.
Mr. Fenton was looking at me and I guess I had to say something.
"I just, well, I just met her ... Connie ... at the pond. I didn't know her, not really."
Mr. Fenton pointed to a chair and I just sat on the edge with my hands between my knees. When I think of it, I must have looked like a real asshole.
"I'm her father, Benjamin Fenton." This guy was tall, over six feet. He kept running his fingers along the seams in his pants. He seemed nervous. "What can I do for you?"
I didn't know what to say. I'm maybe in love with your daughter - I really think she's neat. I looked around the room. What could I say? I intend to find the bastard who killed her.
"Uh ... Mr. Fenton, I met your daughter at the pond." I had already said that. What an asshole. "I met her twice." Was that really important? "She was wearing a pink ... uh, I guess that's not important." I was making a fool of myself. Coming here was a bad idea so I got up to leave.
"Sit down young man." Benjamin Fenton said it with such anger as he stood tall as a chimney in front of me. "I'd like to ask you a few questions." There was just a little pause, then he said. "When was the last time you saw her? Did anyone see you with her? What was she wearing? Was it in town, or did you follow her to Miller's Creek? Did you follow her, in the dark, then attack her ..."
Then he reached out and grabbed me by the collar and dragged me to my feet. "Answer me, devil! Did you follow her to the creek?"
Jesus Murphy he was strong! I started shaking. I'm not used to being pushed around, but this guy was really mad and really strong and I guess I started shaking.
"I loved her. God amighty, I think I loved her!" I just blurted it out. "Mr. Fenton, I even didn't know her name - but I think I loved her, even since that first day at the pond."
He let me go and I fell back onto the chair. I wasn't sure I had said the right thing, then I noticed that my eyes were wet and when I looked up I could see that Mr. Fenton was crying too. He tried to say something but it didn't come out right: "I'm ... now, I just ... just ..."
Mr. Fenton moved back a little and I jumped to my feet. I knew what I should say and I said it loud.
"Mr. Fenton, I want to find the bastard who killed her - and I will, I promise I will!"
When I finally left, the sun had settled in behind the bush and I could see the moon through dirty clouds. I told Ben everything I knew, which wasn't much. I told him how I met Connie, how I felt when I read the story in the Chronicle, how I quit my job to
devote full time to finding the bloody bastard who did this thing. Ben Fenton had been quiet most of the evening. Later, he opened the huge bible and read a passage - can't remember what, but it had something to do with the devil - then he pulled open a bottle of red wine and together we just sort of cried. Somehow it seemed okay. I wasn't mad and I didn't feel stupid because he was big as a pine tree and he was crying more than I was. By the evening's end I had grown to like him and understood better why I had grown to like Connie - perhaps to love Connie, strange as that may seem.
Then Ben told me about Connie's brothers, how they were all fired up and left the cottage last week. Ben hadn't seen or heard from them since. He had closed Gobles variety store and stayed home, just mourning and drinking and crying and reading from the bible.
The Wednesday Chronicle arrived late, but Mrs. Harris called me and flung it down the stairs as soon as it arrived.
The paper still carried the occasional article about Connie Fenton, but the police were stymied and had no real clues to the murder. They're a bunch of nitwits. Now, three weeks after the first article, you might find something about her murder on page one thousand.
But there was now a new story and this story was on page one.
ANOTHER GIRL MISSING
Leah Farrel had supposedly been on vacation for two weeks, her friends hadn't seen her, then she didn't show up for work and her friends got worried and called the police. They broke into Miss Farrel's apartment in the Mayflower Suites, spoken to tenants, contacted her relatives. The girl was definitely missing ... and she had been a