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

to concur with the sheriff. Things looked mighty bad for Ted Russell, dreamy music teacher, unprincipled Lothario, and seducer of little and not-so-little girls. That wasn’t exactly fair; Ted Russell hadn’t seduced me. I had known exactly what I was doing and could blame no one but myself for my poor judgment. I kicked myself—figuratively—yet again for having been so foolish. Why had I gone back to his place that night?

“Ellie, are you all right?” asked Frank, rousing me from my nightmares.

Before leaving the scene, I begged Fred Peruso to let me have a look at the body, but he refused. He finally agreed to meet with me after the autopsy at New Holland City Hospital Sunday morning.

“It’s not for kicks that I want to see her, Fred,” I said one last time. “It’s something very personal. Please.”

“Think it over,” he said. “If you still want to see her tomorrow, we’ll talk. But take my advice: You’ll regret it if you do.”

Frank Olney called his men together to dispense final marching orders. It was after four, and the light was falling fast. The hearse drove off with the body in the back, and I watched it disappear down Route 5, heading to New Holland. The wind was whipping cold from the west just as another county cruiser skidded to a stop on the shoulder of the road. Pat Halvey jumped out and ran to deliver an urgent message to Frank. I was just a few feet away.

“Sheriff,” he called, his breath puffing in the cold air. “I just heard that Joey Figlio attacked Ted Russell in the casual wear department of Mertens. He stabbed him in the neck with a knife.”

“Holy hell,” said Frank. “Where’s Russell now?”

“St. Joseph’s Hospital.”

“What about Figlio?”

Pat shook his head.

“Don’t tell me he got away again.”

“City police said he ran down Mohawk Place and disappeared over the railroad tracks by the river. They haven’t found him.”

The sheriff dispatched a car with two men to the hospital and ordered them to keep him apprised and to await instructions. Then he sent the rest of his deputies back to duty. Before he left, he sauntered over to talk to me.

“What’s first on your agenda?” I asked, wearing my reporter’s hat again.

He frowned and looked off into the distance. “I’ve got to go visit the Metzgers,” he said. “That’ll be a treat. I need one of them to ID the body.”

“Can I come with you? To break the news, I mean.”

“You actually want to do that?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Of course not. But I promised Irene Metzger I’d see this through to the end.”

“Let me take a rain check on that,” said Frank. “It wouldn’t look right. You’ll have to visit the family on your own.”

“I understand.”

“Ellie . . .” he began after a short pause. “About that story of yours.”

“Never mind, Frank,” I said. “You were right to ask me not to print it. It’s not your fault that George Walsh is a thief.”

His eyes expressed relief, even if he said nothing.

Long after the hearse had driven away with Darleen Hicks’s remains inside, and long after Fred Peruso and the sheriff had closed shop and decamped, I sat at the wheel of my Dodge Royal Lancer, scribbling notes for my story. A little after five, I pulled away from the shoulder and gained speed traveling east toward Schenectady, looking for a spot to make a U-turn. A few hundred feet along, I turned onto Cranes Hollow Road—the scene of my disgrace with Ted Russell—and wheeled around toward New Holland. My headlamps lit up a square signpost that read, “Congregation of Israel Cemetery.” It pointed off to the right. I veered up the narrow road that led to Ted Russell’s house but pulled over well short of it, cut the motor, and stepped out into the cool night air.

The cemetery gate opened with a simple lift of the latch. Walking along the dark path, I could see large stone mausolea to my right with names like Gold, Lipshitz, and Stein. Smaller markers followed as I made my way through the tombs. Family plots: Alpert, Singer, Olender, Horowitz, and Levy. I stopped to read some inscriptions. I was struck by the short lifespans on the older stones. An unscientific study convinced me that fifty must have been a ripe old age for the previous generation. More families ensued: Dorfman, Gluck, Suskind, and Salmon. I needed to strike a match to read some of the names and the years. I wandered to the front of the cemetery, up to the black wrought-iron fence that bordered Route 5 and looked out on the Mohawk. I could see the dark shade of Lock 10 in the moonlight. It was time to go. I turned to head back, and I stumbled on the footpath. Steadying myself, I glanced down. There in the ground before me, a small rectangular marker read, “Stone.” I fell to my knees and dissolved into tears.

I had my head start over George Walsh, but I doubted that would last for long. And even if I maintained my lead over him, what assurances did I have that he wouldn’t steal my story when I was done? Besides George Walsh, I had the Capital District papers to worry about. The Schenectady Gazette, Albany Times-Union, and Knickerbocker News might well be muscling in on the story in time for their Sunday morning editions. I needed to shift into high gear.

My first stop took no small measure of courage: the New Holland Police Department. Just three days before, Chief Patrick Finn had been ready to slap me in irons on a trumped-up charge. I was about as confident of walking back out of the station as I was of winning Miss Montgomery County at the next 4-H fair. Despite my fears, I marched up to the duty sergeant and smiled. He didn’t smile back.

“Eleonora Stone from the New Holland Republic,” I announced to little effect. He didn’t know