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

Well, a small fraction of an evening to be precise, but that somehow made the shame worse.

“I just can’t tell you his name, Ellie,” he said. “Don’t ask me to do that. He’s a friend.”

I gathered my things and told him it could mean that he’d rot in jail. That hit home. He actually started to cry.

“Is there anything you can tell me, Ted? Anything that might prove your innocence?”

He sobbed then composed himself. “Louis Brossard.”

“What’s that?” I asked, startled and not sure I’d heard correctly.

“Brossard,” he repeated. “Darleen asked him for money, too.”

When I returned to Frank’s office upstairs, he and the DA were poring over some papers they’d retrieved from Ted Russell’s car. They compared several to a scrap of crumpled paper that looked like the one Frank had read out to me that afternoon in the snow hills, the day the kids discovered Darleen’s lunch box in the melting snow.

“Well, what’s the verdict?” I asked.

Frank shook his head, and the DA took a seat. “Different hand,” said the sheriff. “Ted Russell didn’t write those notes to Darleen.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I left the county jail at nine forty-five, convinced that Ted Russell was probably innocent of Darleen Hicks’s murder. He clearly hadn’t written any love notes to her. At least not any that had been found. And by my own logic, he wouldn’t have been so foolish to dump the body into the river on the wrong side of the lock.

And what about the Louis Brossard revelation? Did that make him a suspect? More of a suspect than Ted Russell, who’d actually been accused of improper behavior with the underage girl? Brossard certainly knew the victim; he’d carried out the investigation, interviewed both subjects, and delivered the verdict. But other than that, I knew of no other contact with Darleen Hicks. He seemed to have an alibi for part of the evening of the murder. He’d been at the superintendent’s Christmas banquet at Isobel’s Restaurant on Division Street on the West End from seven till after ten. Still, he couldn’t account for a large block of time, and I would have to ask him about that.

Sorting out these details in my head cleared room for more ideas. When I spotted a telephone booth on the side of Route 40, near the shopping center north of town, I hit the brakes, slowed to a stop, and climbed out to make a call.

I thumbed through the weathered phone directory chained to the shelf inside the booth, finding Brossard, L. at VIctor 2-1650 at the Northampton Court Apartments. I dropped a dime into the slot and dialed the number. Brossard answered after two rings.

“Mr. Brossard, this is Ellie Stone from the newspaper. I’m sorry to interrupt your evening, but I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Questions? What about?”

“Darleen Hicks.”

“Can’t this wait until Monday? It’s nearly ten on a Saturday night.”

“I know, and I apologize, sir. It’s urgent and will only take a few minutes.”

He grumbled some more before finally agreeing.

“You may have heard that Darleen’s body was found in the river this afternoon,” I began.

“My God, no,” he said. “She’s dead? Where?”

“Her body was found at the Cranesville lock. She was caught in the dam gate.”

Silence down the line. I waited for him to compose himself and find something to say or ask.

“I’m shocked,” he said finally. “I was convinced that she’d run away. This is terrible, terrible news.”

“Have you been following the story in the paper?” I asked.

“Of course. That’s why I was sure she was alive.”

“Then I guess you didn’t see the front page of the Republic this morning. There was a big story about Darleen’s bus ticket.”

“No, I didn’t see the paper today,” he said. “The paperboy must have missed my house. What did it say?”

“That the bus ticket was found unused,” I told him. “Actually, it was found a while ago in Darleen’s locker. Last Monday.”

Now the silence was electric. Perhaps he was doing the math in his head. Or maybe he was simply trying to make sense of the discovery.

“Are you still there?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Last Monday? Wasn’t Monday the day you and the sheriff searched the girl’s locker?” I said that it was. “Then why didn’t you or the sheriff mention it? You’ve known about it for nearly a week, and only now you report it?”

“The sheriff asked me to hold off on the story. He thought Darleen’s killer might benefit from knowing what he knew.”

“So, does the sheriff have any suspects?”

“Just one. Ted Russell. He’s under arrest for suspicion of murder.”

“Ted? Oh, God, no. This is even worse. Why does he suspect him?”

“Well, there was that mess about improprieties with Darleen Hicks,” I said. “That didn’t look good for him.”

“But he was completely innocent of that. Even the girl said so.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “And, of course, the body turned up right in front of his house.”

“That must be a coincidence,” insisted Brossard. “Ted is a good man. I can’t believe he’s capable of such an abomination. I must pray for him.”

“It might be a coincidence, but there’s one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“He admitted that he gave Darleen money.”

A short pause from Brossard. “Well, that doesn’t prove anything. Maybe she needed lunch money.”

“She asked him for a hundred dollars.”

“He gave her a hundred dollars?” asked Brossard, alarmed.

“No, but he did give her money. More than lunch money.” I paused. “It seems Darleen was trying to accumulate a certain sum. Do you know if she asked anyone else for money?”

“Of course not,” he huffed. “What did she want the money for anyway?”

“She told Ted Russell that it was for an abortion,” I said.

“My God,” groaned Brossard. “I can’t believe it. Abortion is a sin, Miss Stone. A cardinal sin. Are you telling me that a fourteen-year-old girl was pregnant and considering an abortion?”

“Fifteen,” I said. “And, yes.”

He seemed genuinely distressed. I could almost hear the rosary beads clicking in his hand as he recited one Ave Maria after another. My interview wasn’t going anywhere