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

“You haven’t found any trace of her there?” I asked.

“We recovered a pair of gloves in the snow last night,” he said. “Dark-blue wool gloves. Darleen’s mother says they’re hers. The father’s not sure.”

“That’s promising, then, isn’t it? The lunch box and the gloves in the same place.”

“Not exactly,” he frowned and rubbed his bald head. “The gloves were all the way over on the other side of the hills. Near the edge of the clearing just inside the woods.”

I thought of Gus Arnold. It was one thing to say you hadn’t seen anything, but a little hard to believe when the girl’s gloves turn up about twenty-five yards from where you tossed your empty bottle of rye.

“Anyways,” continued the sheriff, “I’m not convinced the gloves are hers. And maybe she lost them there weeks earlier. There’s no way to know if we don’t find the body.”

“Then you’re sure she’s dead?” I asked.

He looked at me pointedly. “That girl’s not coming home.”

I admitted that I thought he was right.

“And that damn Marv Kenner, the county supervisor, is making noise about the money I’m wasting carting away the snow. It’s no secret his son Ernie is thinking of running against me next year.”

“Sorry, Frank,” I shrugged. “Maybe the snow will all melt before you haul it away.”

“Not funny,” he frowned. “If we don’t find that girl, the taxpayers are going to want to know why their roads aren’t plowed.”

“So what do you think?” I asked. “If Darleen Hicks isn’t buried in the snow, where is she?”

“I don’t know, but I sure wish she’d run off after all.” he said.

“But, of course, the unused bus ticket ruins that hope.” I was trying to steer the conversation to my big scoop, but Frank wasn’t biting. “Speaking of that,” I said. “It’s been three days since we found the ticket, hasn’t it?”

Frank grunted.

“I’ve been thinking about what we discussed.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, since you’ve found Darleen’s lunch box, I thought there’s no longer any need to hide the story about the bus ticket. And then there’s the note that was inside. And the love letter, too.”

“You haven’t even seen the note,” he said. “You can’t publish a story about evidence you haven’t seen. And to tell you the truth, I’m keeping the bus ticket in reserve. I’ve got someone in mind and was hoping to catch him with it.”

“But you’ve got Joey Figlio,” I said. “It looks as if he might be the one. He had her thermos, didn’t he?”

“He says she gave it to him for his breakfast in the morning before she left for school,” said Frank. “I thought we had an agreement, Ellie. I really don’t want this out before next week.”

We stared at each other for several long, uncomfortable beats.

“Frank, I wouldn’t ask, but I need this story now. I almost lost my job Monday. And now George Walsh is heading back from his wild-goose chase. He’d like nothing better than to take this story away from me. I have to go to print with this, Frank. This is my career.”

He shook his head slowly. “Is your career more important than catching the guy who did this?” he asked.

“Frank, please try to see my side. This means a lot to me.”

We’d reached an impasse. Frank folded his hands together and bowed his head. He looked hurt, and I struggled with my remorse for letting down a friend and the conviction that I was the one being sacrificed.

“You’re going to do what you want, no matter what I say,” he said. “I can’t stop you.”

I leFt the sheriff's office without saying goodbye to Pat Halvey, who stared dumbly after me as I rushed by him on the way to my car. Now the rain had started. A heavy, wet rain that washed the melting snow from the edges of the road into a thick slush, clogging the gutters and drenching the sidewalks. Pedestrians braved the rain at their own peril, especially if I drove past them; I wasn’t slowing for anyone, and the plumes of sludge I sprayed soaked them head to toe. I even splashed a cyclist then caught sight of him in my rearview mirror losing his balance and plunging face first into a giant puddle. Well, what was he doing riding a bike in that weather anyhow?

My chest tightened as I reran the scene with Frank in my mind. I rubbed my eyes with one hand and steered the car with the other. Then I wiped the foggy windshield, nearly opaque from the muggy rain and my own body heat, smearing streaks of moisture across my view. And I hit a trash can on the side of the road. Not hard enough to damage the car, but the garbage can leapt through the air nonetheless and spat its contents onto someone’s slushy lawn. Then the cherry top lit up in my rearview mirror.

“Is everything all right, miss?” asked the New Holland cop as he leaned in the window, dripping rain on my shoulder.

“Yes, officer,” I said, recognizing him as one of the heels who’d laughed the hardest when Chief Finn called me a “Jew girl” exactly one week earlier. “I’m afraid I bumped a trash can.”

“License, please,” he said, standing up and surveying the street as if it belonged to him.

He took my license, retreated to the cover of his patrol car a few feet behind mine, and sat there for at least twenty minutes. I wanted to climb out and ask him to hurry things up, but the rain was really coming down. A group of bystanders collected, standing beneath their umbrellas to watch my humiliation, and I was thankful for the fogged-up windows and the screen they provided.

Finally, there was a tap at my window, and I hurriedly rolled it down. The cop handed me back my driver’s license and told me I’d have to come with him to the station.

“What?” I asked. “Why?”

“Suspicion of drunken driving,” he said.

“That’s absurd. It’s eleven in the morning.