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

“Yes,” he said. “I thought I could be of help to you. You know, get in on the whole investigation thing.” The sun shimmered out of sight behind the house across the street, and I could see him clearly again. He smiled awkwardly.

“Can you get me an interview with Teddy Jurczyk?” I asked, flashing my most fetching smile at him. He seemed unmoved.

“I’d like to see the story done, of course,” he said. “We’re very proud of our Teddy, as you know. And it would be great publicity for him, too. Maybe help get him into a fine college in four years. St. Bonaventure or Siena.” He paused, looking at me with indifferent eyes. “But if Coach is against it, I’m not sure I should interfere.”

“Just one more meeting, then I’ll leave him alone,” I said, trying to catch his eyes. But he was focusing on nothing in particular. Certainly not on me.

Brossard shrugged finally and agreed. I’d won the game without scoring any points, and I was ashamed of myself for the flirting. Then Brossard’s face lit up as he told me how excited he was to see the game Friday.

“Teddy will be in rare form,” he said, beaming.

I returned to the office in time to hand in two more stories for Saturday’s edition: one on pothole repairs on the East End, and the other on some complaints about pollution of the river. New HollandCo, a manufacturer of low-cost carpeting and flooring, was the largest employer left in the city. They had taken over one of the Shaw Knitting Mills’ larger buildings. Wastewater from the factory poured into the Great Cayunda Creek at the rate of five hundred gallons an hour. The Cayunda carried the polluted water down the hill and vomited it into the Mohawk, just underneath the Mill Street Bridge. A local woman had started making noise two years earlier, protesting outside New HollandCo’s offices about the pollution, but most people considered her a crackpot and ignored her. Then she somehow got the ear of a young assistant attorney general for the State of New York, and things began to change quickly. The State commissioned a study of the river in 1959 and pronounced the Mohawk so polluted it was “dead.” Public awareness about pollution grew. I had written several articles on the protests over the past two years. The pothole report was also a regular beat of mine.

Charlie didn’t seem to care about those stories. He called me into his office to discuss Teddy Jurczyk instead.

“I just spoke to Artie Short,” he said, and I recognized his I-hate-this-job frown. “He got a call from Principal Keith at the high school. He says they don’t want you hanging around basketball practice anymore. What did you do, Ellie?”

“Why do you assume I did something wrong, Charlie? Why don’t you ever assume I’m in the right and then ask questions?”

“Come on, Ellie,” he said. “You’re always getting under someone’s skin. It’s your specialty.”

“I think it’s my skirt,” I said. “Anyway, I didn’t do anything to Teddy. For some reason, he thinks I’m a jinx to him.”

“Well, the principal said you can cover the games, but not the practices.”

I smiled.

“What is it?” asked Charlie.

“Just that I don’t need access to the high-school gym to finish my story. Louis Brossard said he’d fix things up for me with young Teddy.”

“Who’s Brossard?”

“Assistant principal of the junior high. And now he fancies himself an amateur detective.”

“How do you mean?”

“He told me he’s figured out that Darleen Hicks ran off because there was a bus-ticket receipt in her bedroom.”

Charlie scoffed. “Hardly discovering penicillin. That bus receipt kind of makes it obvious doesn’t it? Now it would be another thing if she hadn’t actually used the ticket.”

My face must have turned red, because Charlie asked me what was wrong. I shook my head and made up a lie. I left Charlie’s office in a funk. That bus ticket needed to come out, but my hands were tied. I wanted to kick a dent into Frank Olney’s car door. Instead I wandered back to my desk and slumped into my chair. It was nearly six anyway, so I thought I’d head home to wash the taste of the day away with some whiskey and ice. I grabbed my purse and stood to go. Then Norma Geary appeared.

As the room was empty, we sat down to talk without fear of being overheard. She asked me what progress I’d made on my Teddy J. story, and I gave her the short version.

“Lucky that Mr. Brossard showed up,” she said. “He’s probably got eyes for you.”

I shook my head. “I know when a man is interested, or at least entertains ideas, but there’s nothing there. He’s strangely detached or bored or indifferent when he talks to me. I noticed it today.”

“Is he married?”

“He wasn’t wearing a wedding band,” I said. “But not all men wear them. He strikes me more as the priestly type anyway.”

“I’m sure you’re mistaken, Miss Stone,” said Norma. “I’ve seen how men look at you.”

Driven by turns sideways and vertical by strong winds, the rain drummed on the roof and ran down the windows in sheets. The snow was gone from the streets and sidewalks, and the slush washed into the gutters then disappeared, flushed away for good by the downpour. Mrs. Giannetti’s small rectangle of a lawn was exposed, brown and muddy grass, for the first time since Thanksgiving.

Thursday’s television lineup—mostly westerns—didn’t interest me. There was Donna Reed, but that just reminded me of what a mess my life was compared to hers. So I ignored the television and curled up with several whiskeys on the couch to read Lampedusa’s The Leopard. I liked history and far-flung places, and it was a bestseller. Sicily and the Risorgimento seemed like a tonic to take my mind off the unused bus ticket, and, at the same time, I conjured some peaceful memories of