Eventually we slowed down. I could feel the truck bouncing over an unpaved surface; I had still no idea where he was taking me. Then he stopped and switched off the engine. The night was silent, but my heavy breathing resounded under the tarpaulin, and the close cover and terror of anticipation were exacerbated by a growing claustrophobia. I waited on my side for him to come for me. I listened, wondering where he was. What was he doing?
I intended to scream as soon as he returned and freed me, but in that moment, I just listened. Finally, after three or four agonizing minutes, I heard his footsteps approach, his boots crunching over the frozen ground. I have never experienced such abject panic. I screamed and rolled and writhed on the flatbed of the pickup. I can’t exactly say my life passed before my eyes, but there were flashes of images from my youth. I saw a pair of patent leather shoes and then a schoolbook. Elijah’s guitar. My father’s back and my mother’s face, smiling, all as I thrashed. Then the tarpaulin was peeled away, and I loosed a cry with all my might and scratched and spat and kicked as if my life depended on it. And it did.
Or so I thought.
He threw his heavy body on top of me, trying to still my flailing. I punched and shrieked, but he didn’t strike me. He just tried to restrain me. And his voice was deeper and familiar.
“Ellie, it’s me!” he yelled, holding me down. “It’s Frank Olney!”
I fell still, my eyes clenched shut, my lungs gasping for air. Then I opened my eyes. The night was bright with headlights and spinning cherry tops. There were three county cruisers surrounding Dick Metzger’s pickup truck and five deputies standing by. Dick Metzger lay face down in the crusty snow, his hands cuffed behind his back, an ax and a shotgun lying about ten feet away.
“What happened?” I stammered. “Where are we?”
“Metzger’s farm,” said Frank. “He was just about to shoot you, chop you into little pieces, and bury the leftovers under some new concrete.”
“How did you get here just in time?”
“We’ve been following that son of a bitch for three days. Night and day. I’ve had a man on him ever since you told me about that late-night phone call.”
“Following him? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you. And I needed to catch him with something we could put him away for. Now we got kidnapping, assault and battery, and attempted murder.”
I stared in horror at the man on the ground. His head was turned away from me, as if he didn’t want to give me the satisfaction of seeing him defeated. His breath puffed into the cold air, rising above him like an evil steam from a foul manhole. Not far beyond him was the horse shed he’d been building. There was a hole in the ground and a hand-turned cement mixer sitting at the ready. That was my grave.
“You mean you saw him pick me up on the road?” I asked.
“Brunello was tailing him this evening. Saw him fiddling with your tire at the high school in Johnstown. Must have put a nail in it to make it leak. When Metzger drove off after you, Brunello radioed us and followed him, and we converged on him here.”
“But what if he’d killed me on Route Sixty-Seven?”
Frank chewed on that one for a moment. “Hadn’t thought of that. Anyways, he’s busted. He’ll go up for thirty to life, and he’ll be dead before he gets out.”
Stan Pulaski joined us and winced at the bruise on my cheek. He offered me a handful of snow for the swelling. I pressed it to my skin.
EPILOGUE
MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 1961
I spoke to the DA about Dick Metzger, wondering if child molestation couldn’t be tacked on to the charges. Don said that was impossible without a witness or a confession. He also felt awkward discussing with a third party what charges should be filed.
“This is a matter of law,” he said. “It’s not up for public debate.”
“But you’re convinced he molested her, aren’t you? So, what if you got him to cop to that charge instead of the one for trying to kill me?”
Don shook his head in disbelief. “You want to get him a lighter sentence? After what he did to you? Look at your face.”
I brought a hand up to my bruised cheek and touched it without realizing. It was pretty sore, and the resulting headache had forced the postponement of my date with Officer Mike Palumbo. I put that thought to one side.
“No,” I said, returning to the DA’s question. “I want him to admit that he molested that little girl. It’s quite different.”
Don didn’t like the idea. He droned on in his typical voice that it smelled funny, he wasn’t sure how the voters would react, and he wanted to put the bastard away for the rest of his life. But in the end, he agreed to float it by Metzger’s lawyer.
In lieu of forty years for kidnapping, assault and battery, and attempted murder, the DA offered a twenty-five year sentence for child molestation. After a week to think about it, Dick Metzger took the deal.
I finally made my trip back to New York—the one I’d put off three weeks earlier, when I’d discovered the unused bus ticket in Darleen’s locker. It was a nice balm of nostalgia to be back in my family’s lower Fifth Avenue apartment, the home I’d grown up in. It felt different this time. Not tragic, as it had been the last time I’d visited. A year had passed. My visit was to be a short one. Just the weekend, then back to New Holland and the life I’d started to build for myself.
The place was spic and span. No dust covers this time; I’d arranged with Nelda, my father’s cleaning lady, to continue coming every week. I knew I’d return from time to time, maybe permanently one day, and I hated the sight of shrouded furniture and the smell of dust.
I spent Thursday evening at home, listening to music in Dad’s study. Then Friday, I walked around the Village, had coffee, and did some shopping uptown. After so long in New Holland, I was stunned by the styles and the selection at Macy’s and B. Altman. In a fit of impracticality, I chose several dresses, including an extravagant red chiffon number with a billowy skirt and a flounce of bird feathers. But a pang of guilt brought me back to earth. The dresses were far beyond what I could afford on my salary, and I couldn’t bring myself to spend so much of my inheritance on an indulgence. In the end, I disappointed the salesgirl when I changed my mind and bought a winter pullover and a hair band instead.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 28, 1961
I stood before the fireplace, hands on hips, and stared at the two vases, together in the middle of the mantelpiece, the curves of their bodies touching just below the shoulders. I smiled. Then I gently took them down and placed them into a sturdy, wooden box in the foyer. Rodney, my dear old friend who manned the elevator and guarded the door, helped me take the box down to the lobby and place it in my car. An hour and a half later, I rolled to a stop on the alley beneath the bare oak trees of the cemetery in Irvington. Moises Rafael opened my car door and lent me a hand as I stepped out. A small crew of diggers waited next to Elijah’s stone. Dad’s sister Lena and his cousin Max were there, seated in folding chairs. I hadn’t called a rabbi, and reciting the Kaddish was out of the question for many reasons, not the least of which was the lack of a quorum of ten males. It was three days short of one year since my father’s death. I had reached the end of the mourning period. The yahrzeit was here.
Mr. Rafael retrieved the vases from the backseat of the car and placed each into a small, ebony box. He sealed them, nodded to me, and we proceeded to the gravesite. On either side of Elijah’s restored stone were two simple granite markers. “Abraham Stone” and “Libby Stone.” I’d had my mother’s stone engraved with “Libby” instead of “Elisheba Merkle Stone,” as no one knew her by that name. She was Libby.
I stood there solemnly as the men placed the ebony boxes into the ground. Max stood by my side, and my Aunt Lena held my hand. No one spoke. That wasn’t on the agenda. But I said good-bye to my mother in my head, thinking how lucky I’d been to have her. How glad I was that she had never had to bury me as Irene Metzger had done for her daughter. I said goodbye
to the joys and the memories we’d shared. I said goodbye to my dear brother Elijah, who was never far from my thoughts. To this day, whenever someone calls me “El,” I think of him and smile. And I said good-bye to my father, to the tears and regrets and sorrow we’d shared and inflicted upon each other. The disappointment I’d caused him should have died with him. Instead I’d kept it alive through all the years when we hardly spoke, and now for the year since his death, flogging myself with his regrets. I drew one last breath of bitterness then blew it out. I loved my father, and he was gone; whatever torture he’d made for himself had ended for him when he died. And now, at his graveside, this was where it ended for me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe a debt of gratitude to many people who have played a role in bringing this book to life.
Thank you, Bill Reiss of John Hawkins & Associates, my agent, you offer the wisest advice in the business.
From Seventh Street Books, I’m indebted to Dan Mayer, editorial director, who took a chance on the Ellie Stone mysteries and makes each book better with his judicious edits and challenging questions; Jill Maxick, vice president of Marketing and director of Publicity, for her support, her enthusiasm, and her efforts to promote my books; Jackie Nasso Cooke, senior graphic designer, who has outdone herself yet again with a chillingly beautiful cover design; Melissa Raé Shofner and Jade Zora Scibilia, my editors, for their fine-tooth combs; Jake Bonar, publicist, for working so diligently to get the book into the right hands; and Pete Lukasiewicz, editorial assistant, for securing blurbs from such talented authors.
My very heartfelt thanks go to some people who gave advice and lent expertise on Stone Cold Dead: Dr. Kunda and Dr. Hilbert for all things medical; Lynne Raimondo, legal and plot; and Dianne Tangel-Cate, editorial.
And for reasons that go far beyond anything to do with books, my deepest appreciation is reserved for Lakshmi.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James W. Ziskin is the author of the Ellie Stone mysteries Styx & Stone and No Stone Unturned. A linguist by training, he studied Romance languages and literature at the University of Pennsylvania. He lives in the Hollywood Hills with his wife, Lakshmi, and their cats, Bobbie and Tinker.
Stone Cold Dead Page 35
