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

kiss our loved ones, including children.” He drew a difficult breath through his flaring nostrils. We stood so close that I could smell the hatred in his words, which passed over my face, almost strong enough to move the ringlets of stray hair around my temples. “My mother kissed me that way,” he continued. “I kissed my daughter that way. And no pretty, little city girl with a dirty mind is going to tell me that it’s wrong.”

He turned and followed his wife down the stairs, and I finally drew a breath. Palumbo had turned white. He stood there big and tall, filling up my kitchen. Then he cleared his throat again, like a shy suitor, and told me he would watch the street that night.

And with that, my only protection—besides the soggy broom—left me in my kitchen to face the rest of the night alone.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 1961

I was slow out of the gate on Friday, due to a sleepless night. As tired as I was, though, there was no question of phoning in sick. For one thing, I didn’t want to add to Artie Short’s Friday absenteeism ammunition, and, for another, I wanted to get out of that house. I felt like a sitting duck, waiting for someone to come for me. On my way out the door, Mrs. Giannetti caught me and questioned me about the night before.

“I heard a party going on,” she said. “I thought I was clear about entertaining during the week.”

“There was no party,” I said. “Just the police.”

“Oh, my!” she gasped. “What have you done now, Eleonora?”

“I didn’t do anything,” I said. “Someone was prowling around last night, so I called the police.”

“A prowler? Again? That’s twice in a month. What’s this town coming to?”

I stopped myself from pointing out that both intrusions, actual and attempted, were not part of a greater crime wave or loss of civility in New Holland. They were the direct result of my poking around on murder stories: Darleen Hicks’s and Jordan Shaw’s. If I minded my own business, Lincoln Avenue could retake its rightful spot in a Norman Rockwell painting.

“Did they catch him?” asked Mrs. Giannetti.

“Who?”

“The burglar. I won’t be able to sleep if they didn’t catch him.”

I churned through my purse, searching for the car keys. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Giannetti,” I said, climbing into my car. “He wasn’t after you.”

The rain had started again. I wrestled my umbrella open then made a dash for the office from my parking spot down the street. The wind was strong enough to blow me off course a couple of times. I arrived at the brass-and-glass door of the Republic offices at the same time as George Walsh, and we nearly bumped into each other as we tried to squeeze through the entrance with our dripping umbrellas. Inside, we exchanged stiff good mornings then had to make our way up the stairs together in awkward silence. Finally, I broke the ice.

“Nice tan you got in Arizona,” I said as we reached the second floor.

I spent the morning preparing my feature on Teddy Jurczyk. All I needed was ten minutes of his time and a couple of nice action shots from the game that evening. Louis Brossard called mid-morning to let me know I could meet Teddy at three after his last class ended.

To confirm what Irene Metzger had told me, I telephoned Alma Norquist, the neighbor who shared the party line with the Metzgers. Of course, this wasn’t the first time I’d spoken to her. The evening I got stranded at the Karl farm, I had interrupted Mrs. Norquist on the phone and told her we were under nuclear attack. I thought the odds were long that she would recognize my voice, but even if she did, at least she couldn’t complain about how Armageddon had turned out.

Her version of Darleen’s adult-male caller matched Irene Metzger’s in the main, but I had a couple of questions of my own for her. I wanted her to describe the man’s voice. Deep? Did he speak slowly? Did he have an accent? Did he sound like a young man or middle-aged? No, no, no, and hard to say. His voice, it seems, was quite unremarkable.

“And you’re positive you’d never heard the voice before?” I asked. “Could it have been a neighbor? Bobby Karl, perhaps? Or Mr. Rasmussen?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I know those two. It wasn’t them. Besides, Bobby Karl is tongue-tied in front of girls. And the man asked to meet her at the school.”

“Do you know if Darleen ever got other calls?” I asked. “From friends or boyfriends her own age?”

“Of course. That girl was always on the phone. Used to hog the line.”

“Any boyfriends?”

“Two or three,” she said. “Let’s see. There was Wilbur, of course. But that was months ago. What a dullard that boy was,” and she laughed. “And there were two others she spoke with more recently.”

“Was one named Joey?” I asked, wondering if Alma Norquist had a television—or was the party line her own personal soap opera?

“Oh, yes, I remember him. The little snot called me ‘Grandma’ when I told him it was my time to do my telephoning. ‘Keep your shirt on, Grandma,’ he said. Of all the nerve.”

“Who was the other boy?”

She searched her memory but couldn’t retrieve the name. “It’s on the tip of my tongue,” she said. “A polite boy.”

My skin tingled, as I remembered a series of notes I’d come across.

“Was it Ted, by any chance?” I asked.

“That’s it! Smart boy. And polite. Never called me ‘Grandma.’”

I’d had a feeling itching the back of my brain since my interview with little Gordie Douglas. The boy wonder said “endomorphic” was the word his opponent had missed when he’d won his crown. (I still couldn’t believe they’d asked one kid to spell “endomorphic” and then given Gordie “poodle” for the win.) And that had reminded me of the note I’d found in Darleen’s room, the one