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

my father reading his beloved Italian literature and history. But alcohol and reading don’t mix, at least not for me. I couldn’t concentrate, kept losing the thread, and found myself pages ahead without remembering what I’d just read. It was getting late anyhow, and I was thinking about bed, when there was a knock at my kitchen door.

“Who is it?” I asked, a broom cocked behind my head like a baseball bat, in case it was a marauder on the other side of the door. I had received, after all, my share of unwanted visitors in recent days, and it was after eleven thirty. As I stood there, elbows bent, twitching the broom like Mickey Mantle waiting for a pitch, I realized that this attack position meant that the head of the broom, with its relatively soft bristles, would be employed to fend off any and all comers. Effective for chasing mice, perhaps, but against an attacker with nefarious intent, it was a poor choice of weapon.

“It’s Irene Metzger,” came the voice through the glass panel and sheer curtain.

I opened the door and let her in. She brought the same smell of wet wool as she had the first time I’d met her on New Year’s Eve. She was wearing the same transparent rain hat as well. And once she’d sat at my kitchen table, I served her the same whiskey we’d drunk that night.

“I haven’t seen you in a few days,” she said, settling in with a cigarette between her fingers.

“Your husband threw me out,” I said. “He threatened me.”

She waved her hand and drew a deep drag on her cigarette. “He’s sorry about that.”

“I didn’t get the flowers and chocolates.”

“He’s a good man, miss,” she said, ignoring my remark. “Give him a second chance. We just have to find out what happened to Darleen.”

“The sheriff's your man. He’s on the case, isn’t he?”

She nodded. “Sure, but he keeps things to himself. He doesn’t tell us what’s going on. And we haven’t seen any articles in your paper since the lunch box was found. Have you given up on Darleen?”

I thought about the bus ticket yet again. How I wanted to tell Irene Metzger that I was still hot on the story of her daughter’s disappearance and had even written a significant piece for the paper just the day before. I wanted to tell her that my hands were tied, but that would have been a coward’s way out. I could publish the story if I wanted. I was just angry with myself for putting my loyalty to Frank Olney ahead of my own interests. The small bit of consolation I felt was that I actually had come around to Frank’s way of thinking: namely that withholding the evidence of the unused bus ticket was surely the wiser way to proceed. After all, if Louis Brossard had formed his conclusion on Darleen’s fate based on his ignorance of the unused ticket, perhaps others would as well. That could work in the sheriff's favor.

“I have not given up on your daughter, Mrs. Metzger,” I said, and we both took a sip of Scotch. “The trail is cold, but there’s the lunch box and the note inside.”

“Yes, the sheriff told me about that. He thinks the note could have been written some time ago, and the lunch box might have been lost earlier, too. But I know Darleen took it that morning.”

“Perhaps the sheriff just doesn’t want you to get your hopes up.”

“Hopes?” she snorted. “Are you kidding? I ain’t got no hopes, except to find my little girl and give her a proper burial. Reverend Holman at the Presbyterian church in Tribes Hill tells me that a funeral gives a person solace. I sure hope so, ’cause that’s all I’ve got to look forward to.” She paused, took a gulp of whiskey, then added that she and Dick Metzger weren’t Presbyterians at all. “We just go to that one ’cause the closest Lutheran church is in New Holland. What church do you go to?”

“Saint John the Mattress,” I mumbled, repeating one of Fadge’s oft-told jokes.

“I see,” she said. “Catholic.”

“Why did you come here tonight?” I asked, pouring us each another drink. “Surely not to scold me.”

“I got some information to tell you that might help.” She had my ear. “We have a party line at our place, so we have to share with the neighbors. Mrs. Norquist hogs the line in the evenings when she does her telephoning.”

“Yes, I’ve had the pleasure of waiting for Mrs. Norquist to take a breath.”

“Beg your pardon?”

I explained about my evening at the Karls’ place.

“Well, I had to break into her conversation the other night, and she said she heard about Darleen. Thought it was a terrible thing. And then she said she overheard a strange phone call between Darleen and a man about a month ago.”

“A man? Did she know who it was?”

Irene Metzger shook her head. “No, she just heard a part of what they were saying.”

“And what did she hear?”

Irene clamped her lips down on a fresh cigarette, struck a match, and lit it, sucking its smoke into her lungs as if trying to prime a siphon.

“Mrs. Norquist said the man was older,” she said finally. “He was talking sweet to her. He wanted to meet her after school, but Darleen said no.”

“An older man,” I said, half to myself, the specter of Ted Russell raising its ugly head in my mind. “And you say Mrs. Norquist didn’t hear any names?”

Irene Metzger began to answer, but stopped mid-word. There was a creaking on my back staircase and the sound of footsteps climbing.

“You expecting someone?” she asked.

I shook my head no, eyes fixed on the kitchen door. The steps climbed higher, softly, carefully, as if whoever was out there wanted to be quiet. It might have been someone not wanting to disturb Mrs. Giannetti downstairs. Heck, it might have been Mrs. Giannetti herself, having heard noises upstairs and wanting to catch me