by Peter Ponzo
fuckin' bright on the lake that it hurt your eyes and I could feel the tears comin' ... just from the glare, that's all. When I looked back to the bench, Cleaver was gone.
I knew where he lived, in the basement of Mrs. Harris' house, but I figured I'd leave him be. He knew where I worked. He'd get in touch.
Terry Cleaver
Connie had been getting letters, threatening letters, typed on pink stationary. She must have known that her life was in danger, yet when I spoke again to Ben Fenton he said his daughter never said a word about the letters. Rita went with me, to Benjamin Fenton's cottage in Gobles.
"No, Connie never mentioned any letters," Ben said. "But I'm not surprised. She usually kept things to herself, didn't say much, often seemed in a world of her own." Then he looked around as though somebody was listening. "What's funny is the pink." Then he just stared at me, completely ignoring Rita who sat at the table flipping through that gigantic bible.
Benjamin Fenton had by now accepted Connie's death and had opened Gobles variety store again, but I could tell that my bringing up the subject was causing him some distress. He paced back and forth across the small room, then sat in a chair and began to speak in a voice that quivered with either rage or despair.
"Pink was Connie's favorite color," he said. "Everything she owned had something pink. A ribbon, a collar, a belt." He paused and Rita cut in:
"Whoever sent those threats knew Connie well enough to use pink paper."
Ben turned to look at Rita as though he had noticed her for the first time.
"Yes ... I suppose," Ben said, the words coming slowly. He seemed now to be looking past Rita, at the wall behind. I looked at Rita, then at the wall and soon Rita had turned to look at the wall. Then, as though we were both thinking the same thoughts, Rita and I got up and went to look at the faded photos.
There were perhaps twenty pictures on the wall, mostly of Ben and his two boys fishing or playing ball or driving some old tractor on a muddy field. But there were a couple of Connie and one, just one, of a woman in her twenties with a baby in her arms.
"That's Connie's mother," Ben said. "It's the only picture I have of her. She was nineteen when Jonah was born, twenty-one when she had Joshua and ..."
Rita and I both looked around and saw Ben crying. I felt like I shouldn't have come to Gobles, to dig up old memories, to cause this man such grief.
"I'm sorry Mr. Fenton," I said. "I really didn't mean to -"
"No, no, it's quite all right. It's been a long time. Norah died when Connie was five. It's been a long time."
I noticed that Rita had slipped out the front door. She didn't like to see Ben cry.
"Norah always wore pink, just like Connie does ... did." Ben had come to the wall and together we looked at the photograph of his wife holding Connie in her arms. "When Norah was killed ...," then he stopped and wiped his eyes and turned to gaze out the window. Rita was leaning against a rickety fence, chewing on a stick. Ben seemed to be staring at her.
"Did you say 'killed'?" I said, but Ben didn't answer. Instead he turned to me and pointed to the door.
"I think you'd better go. I have to get back to the store."
He spoke in a deep voice, in a matter-of-fact way as though he had forgotten what he had just said, forgotten about Connie's murder. It was Sunday and I couldn't really believe that he had to work at his store, but we left without another word.
When Rita and I got back to Haversville we stopped at Kelly's Bar and talked, over a beer.
"If Connie's old lady was killed then it woulda been in the papers. We should look -" Rita said.
"Why? What connection could there be," I interrupted. "Jesus Murphy, these murders were maybe fifteen, twenty years apart! Besides, Ben said Connie's mother was killed, not murdered. It could have been an accident, like maybe she was killed by a mad dog."
"How can we tell, unless we check it out?"
Rita was right. Maybe there was a connection. So the next evening, after Rita came home from work, we drove to Dunnborne. Rita had bought a rusty old Chev with only half its complement of windows, but it sure as hell beat walking.
Dunnborne was a sleepy village with just a corner grocery, a post office, a one-room police station and a small hardware store with a hand-painted sign which said "everithing for the handiman". But Dunnborne did have a small country newspaper which had a reputation for printing all the local gossip.
"Yup, I remember, sure nuff. Norah Fenton, beautiful gal, simple, always helpin' others, always bright 'n' cheery, can't say she had a single enemy, yet there she was, killt dead in the meadow crosst from Shulley's farm, raped, clothes torn right off."
Clemence Broden was the editor of the Dunnborne Press and everything he said just ran on and on in a continuous stream. I wondered if his paper had the same characteristic. I suspected it did.
"What color was her dress?" Rita was right on track. It was just what I had intended to ask.
Clem pulled his pipe from his mouth, stared at it awhile then grinned, his cheeks breaking out in a thousand creases, a single yellow tooth peeking from under his gums. He must have been a thousand years old.
"Pink, that's it, pink, cuz I remember seeing her in church with that same dress and the missus, Clara, she wanted one just like it but you couldn't buy it round here and I wasn't about to get it thru no catalog, can't trust the mails, can't trust the postmaster."
I looked at Rita. Pink. Was there some connection?
We bought a copy of the Dunnborne Press and drove back to Haversville. Sure enough, the paper read just like old Clem talked.
Mrs. Harris seemed pleased to see us and had already pulled a meatloaf from the oven, setting it on the table, hoping we would be back before it got cold. By the time we got home, it was cold.
"It's about time you got yourself a friend," Mrs. Harris said, her eyes lighting up, her face beaming as she watched Rita. I guess I blushed just a little and looked at Rita out the corner of my eye. She was wolfing down her portion of meatloaf as though it was the first time she had eaten home-cooked in weeks. Rita looked up, grinned with cheeks bulging, then went back to eating. I smiled politely and Mrs. Harris left us alone.
After we ate we went to my rooms in the basement and I made notes of what had been said this day, by Benjamin Fenton, by Clemence Broden. Rita was sitting across from me at the table, leafing through the pile of papers, notes, police reports.
"Did you read this?" she said.
"I've read everything on this table - several times."
"You didn't say anything about braces on her teeth," she said.
I stopped writing.
"Let me see that." I slid the police report from her hand and read it for the umpteenth time.
When they found Connie's body at Miller's Creek, or at least the pieces of her body, they also found braces. I read the report once more. It did list braces among the items found with the body. I remember now. I didn't think of braces as in braces on her teeth. Actually, I hadn't the faintest idea of what the police report had been talking about. But braces on her teeth. Why hadn't I thought of that?
"Connie didn't wear braces on her teeth," I said, still staring at the report. I don't know how I knew this, but I was certain.
"But braces go on, then they come off, then on again. Maybe you just never saw her with braces on."
"No. I'm sure. She didn't wear braces."
Rita and I looked at each other for perhaps a minute, then Rita said it first.
"Then the girl at the Creek wasn't Connie."
I felt my heart pounding and I could hardly breathe. Rita seemed to know what I was thinking, what I was feeling.
"Well, hold on Cleaver. She ain't around, right? Maybe they just haven't found her body. Or maybe it was her body they found and she just happened to be wearing her braces that day."
Rita was right, as usual, but we had to be sure. I tried to say something but the words wouldn't come.
"Okay, I
know what you're thinking," Rita said. "The police files. They must have something else, something that will clear this up." She grinned and whispered. "I'll get in tonight. Want to come along?"
Connie Fenton
We sat side-by-side on a couch in a small room at the back of the church. It was very dark and I wanted to ask Father Pollicciano if he would mind opening the heavy drapes, but he was staring at me with such a strange look that I was somehow frightened. There was a candle burning on the wall, beneath a tiny statue of Jesus on the cross. The candle flickered and I could see the lines of light and shadow dancing on his face.
"Tell me, my child, what do you know of Miss Farrel's death."
How did he know that Leah was dead? Had I told him? I couldn't remember.
"I was worried when she didn't return from the pond, so I went there, on my bike, and found her body." I could hear the tremble in my own voice. "It was terrible," I said.
"What did you see, at Miller's Creek?"
Did I say Miller's Creek? Hadn't I said the pond? How did he know?
"There were pieces of flesh and blood everywhere, her body completely dismantled." I guess I was crying and the words came out shaking. "But I recognized the bathing suit - it was mine, a pink suit with a collar that I made at the dress shop."
He placed his right hand on my knee and made the sign of the cross with his left hand. I can't recall a priest using his left hand for the cross.
"Go on, my child."
"It was my pink suit. The pond is always deserted. It's where I go to swim. I knew that