Stone Cold Dead by James Ziskin (great novels of all time txt) 📕

“You’re Miss Stone?” he asked. “Do you remember me?”

“Of course,” I said, surely blushing. “What are you doing here at the junior high? Aren’t you the high-school assistant principal?”

“Oh, no. That’s Mr. Brooks. He was ill that night and asked me to fill in for him,” he explained. “All the administrators are required to chaperone basketball games from time to time.”

“Your lucky night,” I said. “You got the sick girl. Sorry about that.”

He smiled and waved it away, held a chair for me, then took his own seat behind his desk. I smoothed my skirt over my knees, wet my lips, and waited for an opening.

“So you’re here to do a story on our Teddy J.?” he asked, rocking in his chair. “He’s quite a phenomenon, isn’t he? And only a freshman.”

“I’ll say. It’s not often a freshman makes the varsity squad. And he’s the best player on the team.”

“Best player in the county,” he corrected.

“By the way, I’ve been wondering why the freshman class is part of the junior high and not the high school. That’s unusual, isn’t it?”

“Simple explanation,” he said. “The high school’s too small to house four classes, so the freshmen are here.”

“I see. So tell me more about Teddy.”

“Well, did you know he’s an honors student at the top of his class? Best scores in the school on the Iowa Tests. We think he’s going to be a writer someday. Brilliant in English.”

I smiled back at him for a moment, then I gave up on the charade.

“Yeah . . . Mr. Brossard, I’m not really here to talk about Teddy Jurczyk,” I said.

Brossard was confused. “Sorry?”

“I’m investigating the disappearance of a student of yours: Darleen Hicks. I believe she’s a ninth grader here.”

The change of gears had thrown him. He gaped at me, cocked and shook his head as if to clear out the cobwebs.

“I’m making general inquiries into her disappearance. Her mother is convinced she didn’t run off, as the sheriff believes.”

Now he was peeved. Brossard leaned forward in his chair and stared me down, as he might do to a truant student.

“What game is this, Miss Stone? Why the pretense of talking about Teddy Jurczyk?”

“I apologize. I don’t know why I said that.” Truth be told, the disorienting effect had been my intention. It’s an old Indian trick I use often when interviewing. He settled back in his chair, watching me, drawing out the silence to intimidate me. I really don’t mind silence; it gives me time to collect my thoughts.

“Yes, Darleen Hicks is a student here,” he said finally. “What is it you want exactly?”

“I’d like to speak to some of her friends and others who might know her. Her teachers, for instance.”

Brossard pursed his lips and tented his fingers as he thought it over. Then he shook his head.

“I don’t like the idea,” he said. “It would be very disruptive.”

“For the girls or the teachers?”

“Both. Did the paper send you here?”

“Actually, it was Mrs. Metzger, Darleen’s mother, who asked me to help find her.”

Brossard was softening now that the shock of my bait-and-switch was wearing off.

“I remember the day it happened,” he said. “It was a Wednesday, and her class went to Canajoharie to the Beech-Nut factory. I remember because it was also the day of the superintendent’s Christmas banquet. The entire administrative staff was invited to Isobel’s. I had ziti and meatballs.”

“That’s nice,” I said, wondering what that had to do with the price of tea in China. “About Darleen Hicks . . .”

“It is a perplexing case,” he said.

I crossed my legs and leaned forward. “In what way?”

“People don’t simply disappear. She either had a plan to run away or someone made plans for her.”

“Foul play?” I asked.

“What else?”

“You don’t think she ran off?”

“That’s the most likely possibility, but she would have needed help.”

“Money . . .” I offered.

He nodded. “And transportation.”

I mulled over his assessment for a minute then asked him again about Darleen’s friends. He frowned as he considered it.

“I still don’t like the idea of you talking to the girls. They’re young and impressionable.”

“You’re probably right,” I said, thinking I could easily visit Darleen’s friends on my own away from school. “What if we compromise? May I speak to a couple of her teachers?”

Brossard arranged for me to meet Darleen’s algebra teacher, Mr. Vernon, during his free period at ten a.m. Mrs. Worth escorted me to the newer building, passing through a communicating hallway on the second floor, and we climbed the stairs to the teachers’ lounge on the third.

“That’s him over there,” she said, pointing to a tall, balding man in a dark-blue suit, serving himself some coffee from the stainless-steel percolator. He was bent over about twenty degrees, searching for the cleanest sugar cube in the bowl to drop into his cup. Once he’d made his selection, he stood up straight and twirled a spoon through his coffee. Then he turned and spotted us in the doorway. He must have been warned of my visit, because he scowled. In fact, he produced the physical equivalent of a groan, making me feel as welcome as a sneeze. He trudged over to a worn armchair and placed his coffee down on a heavy wooden side table. Then he drew a handkerchief from his vest pocket and proceeded to dash it against the chair’s seat several times. At least that’s what I assumed he was doing. From my vantage point at the door, his large bottom blocked my view and any chance for a true eyewitness account.

“I’m afraid you’ll find he’s a pill,” Mrs. Worth whispered in my ear.

Her confidence surprised me, and I must have looked puzzled. Then she gave me a gentle nudge. “Go get him,” she said. “Girl reporter.” And she winked. No smile. Just a wink.

I still looked confused.

“Jordan Shaw was in my Girl Scouts troop,” she said. Then she turned and left.

I cracked a small grin back at her, though she didn’t