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

get out of the car and walk a straight line. But the driver confessed straightaway that he’d drunk too much at the superintendent’s Christmas banquet. He broke down and wept, begged the officer not to arrest him, even offered a bribe. And, in the end, Mike Palumbo gave him a stern lecture and a warning. He followed the driver home, just to be sure he made it without incident.

“But why didn’t you arrest him?” I asked.

Mike shrugged, by now uncomfortable with my interrogation. “I felt sorry for the guy,” he said. “And he was the assistant principal, so I didn’t want to see him in hot water.”

“And you say he was heading north over the bridge? Where was he coming from? Where was he going?”

“I don’t know, Ellie,” he said.

“Sorry, Mike,” I said, realizing I had come on a little strong.

“Sure,” he said. “Maybe it’s time to call it a night. Tomorrow’s Monday, after all.”

When Mike dropped me off, he followed me up onto the porch. Nothing to get excited about. If my oddball behavior, heavy drinking, wasted food, and lying hadn’t driven him off, the third-degree questioning surely had. He was just being polite or just being a cop.

“I want to make sure your place is safe,” he said. “You’ve had quite a few unwanted visitors lately.”

We climbed the stairs quietly, and I turned the key in the kitchen door. Mike entered first, switched on the lights, and checked each room, one by one, for intruders. The last room was my bedroom. I thought he’d played it quite cool and still managed to make it into my bedroom. But then he walked back out and pronounced the place clear. My heart sank.

I accompanied him to the door, resigned to writing the evening off as a bust. But before he left, he asked if I was free Friday.

“I’ve got a high-school basketball game to cover,” I said.

“What about Saturday?”

“I’ll check my calendar,” I said. “I might have to fend off a pack of juvenile delinquents and murderers.”

“I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said. “And eat something this time. You don’t want to fill up on bread.”

MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 1961

My week got off to an early start. Arriving at the office at seven, I sat down to rewrite my murder timeline. I was now sure that the body had been tossed off the Mill Street Bridge; it was the only possibility. And before I could convict Louis Brossard of murder in my mind, I reviewed what I knew and didn’t know. What had he been doing on the Mill Street Bridge at such a late hour? Why had he been on the south side of the river? He lived in Northampton Court, after all, which was near the northern limits of the city. I knew he’d attended the Christmas banquet earlier that evening, but that had ended before ten thirty. And besides, Isobel’s Restaurant was on the north side of the river, on the West End. What had happened to Louis Brossard between ten thirty and one thirty in the morning? Had he been drunk at the banquet or had he fueled up somewhere else? There were plenty of taverns on the South Side, of course, so it was possible he’d tied one on over there. Or maybe he’d returned to the snow hills after the banquet to dig out Darleen’s body and deposit it in the river.

I wrote a note to Norma Geary, asking her to make some inquiries for me while I was tied up in editorial meetings later that morning. I slipped the envelope under her typewriter cover, where she would find it first thing upon her arrival.

Georgie Porgie was seated in the City Room for the Monday morning meeting, a large envelope on his lap and a smug grin on his lips. The meeting began as usual with a recap of the weekend’s breaking news. Charlie had a bone to pick with the entire staff.

“On Saturday, we put out a special early edition,” he began. “George, here, broke a big story on the Hicks girl and her unused bus ticket.” George beamed and sat up in his chair. “But then what happened?” asked Charlie. “We all took the rest of the weekend off to rest on our laurels while I was out of town. Does anyone know that they found the girl’s body on Saturday? And arrested three suspects?”

There was silence in the room.

“I know that,” I volunteered.

“Of course you do,” barked Charlie. “Everyone knows it now. What we needed was someone to get on it Saturday. Artie Short just chewed my head off because we missed the biggest break on this story. Now we have nothing for this afternoon’s edition.”

I waited for the echo of Charlie’s voice to fade before serving him his crow with a knife and fork. But Georgie Porgie beat me to the punch.

“I have here a photo of the Figlio boy,” he said. “It’s a school picture.”

“And what am I going to do with that?” snapped Charlie. “We don’t have any of the details of what happened, no pictures of the lock where the body was found, nothing to excite readers.”

“How about a photograph of Joey Figlio being arrested?” I asked. Everyone turned to look at me. “And two rolls of film of the sheriff and the hearse at Lock 10 on Saturday afternoon? Oh, and I have four articles for you. If you review them right away, all four should make the front page of today’s edition, this time with my byline,” and I threw a glance at George Walsh.

Charlie stared open-mouthed at me. The room was silent.

“I was here on Saturday afternoon when a tip came in about the body,” I explained. “I was on the scene minutes after they fished the body out of the dam gate.”

“This meeting is over,” said Charlie, a huge smile spreading over his lips. “Ellie, come with me.”

Once we were in Charlie’s office, I told him about George