“That doesn’t surprise me,” said the judge with a sniff. “He cursed me—and Jordan, incidentally—two years ago when I sentenced him to county jail for sixty days.”
I choked into the phone. “You sent Pukey Boyle to jail?”
Perhaps I’d dismissed Pukey’s involvement too quickly. According to Judge Shaw, he had been arrested for instigating a barroom brawl. The judge, who, at the time, was on the municipal-court bench, sentenced Pukey to thirty days and had only one regret: that he couldn’t lock him away longer. At sentencing, Pukey uttered a few choice words for the judge and his daughter, though she’d had nothing to do with the matter. Indeed, she was in Boston at the time, unaware that Pukey had even been arrested. Mr. Boyle’s outburst earned him thirty days more in the slammer for contempt.
I knew I’d have to talk to Pukey again, and the prospect intrigued me, despite the doubt in my mind. If Pukey was guilty, I’d prefer to meet him with Frank Olney’s large self at my side. But if he was innocent, well . . . I can take care of myself. In the meantime I’d have to be content just to have a look under his car. First I had to find it.
I dialed Jordan and Ginny’s Boston number again with the same result. Then I tried the White residence in Brookline and spoke to the housekeeper, Bernadette. She spoke rapidly in a high, tight voice and a strong Irish brogue as she told me Ginny had gone back to school Saturday afternoon, the same day her parents left for a Florida holiday. I made a note in my pad.
“Have you spoken to her since then?” I asked.
“Why would I be speakin’ to her? I just saw her Friday, and she’s got studyin’ and boys to worry about before she bothers about me.”
“Well, if you do hear from her, can you give her my name and number?”
“What’s this all about anyway?” she asked.
Just then the operator broke in to ask for fifty-five cents more for the next three minutes, and I took advantage of the interruption to ring off.
I was curious to know more about Jordan Shaw the girl. I’d heard good and bad and figured the truth probably lay somewhere in between. I wanted a picture more complete than a muddied corpse and an album of family photographs, so I drove to Walter T. Finch High School to find out.
My request to see Jordan’s academic records was met with anger and indignant refusals, followed by threats to have me thrown out on my ear. But one phone call to Judge Shaw settled the question of propriety. The staff was surprised when the judge asked them to cooperate with me, but once he had, the principal—Herbert Keith—and his minions performed contortions to aid me in my task.
Jordan Shaw was born August 11, 1939, in New Holland, New York, and graduated third in her class of 412 in 1957. Her grade-point average over four years at W. T. Finch High was 3.96. Glowing reports of her intelligence, spirit, and promise filled the pages of her file.
Jordan’s straight-toothed smile graced many pages of the 1957 yearbook, which a secretary provided for my perusal. Several of her more noteworthy activities were listed below her senior portrait. She had been a cheerleader, a yearbook editor, and a member of the drama, French, and photography clubs. Homecoming Queen, 1956; captain of the girls’ field-hockey team, 1957; member of the National Honor Society, 1954–57; class vice president, 1956–57; recipient of the Joshua P. Wentworth scholarship for good citizenship; voted Miss NHHS, 1957 . . . For future plans, she made the bold prediction of “College.”
She was pretty, hair brushed straight and curled at the shoulders, but she looked young and unsophisticated, like a high schooler in saddle shoes and a letterman’s sweater. Not like the dead girl I’d photographed a couple of nights before. That was a young woman, and a beautiful one at that. Beneath her activities was a quote:
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever;
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness.” John Keats.
I looked under the Hs for Julio Hernandez, just to see if he was there. Fadge had told me Jean Trent’s young buck was twenty-one, the same age as Jordan, but there was no portrait of him. Flipping toward the back, I stumbled across the only Q in the book: Thomas Quint. With his hair slicked down and a numb look in his eyes, as if he’d been doped, he looked awkward and dull in the studio portrait. I wondered how photographers did it. How did they manage to erase even the most ebullient personality with the push of a button? Tom’s activities hardly matched Jordan’s, but I remembered Fadge telling me he had worked at Fiorello’s all through high school. Nevertheless, he had somehow found time to run track, play JV basketball, and captain the chess team. His quote was Samuel Johnson: “Hell is paved with good intentions.” Marginalia for my investigation.
Glenda Whalen should have demanded her money back from the photographer, whose work was either a cruel joke or a dereliction of duty.
I took the yearbook with me. Maybe I’d get to know the victim better by a more relaxed study of the class of 1957. Or maybe I was just curious.
Millicent Riley greeted me from her perch at the Republic’s receptionist’s desk, smiling falsely from beneath her horn-rimmed glasses and mask of Woolworth’s cosmetics.
“Mr. Short wants to see you,” she said in her most severe voice.
“I just want to run some film first,” I said.
“He said it was urgent, Miss Stone.”
“Of course. Is Bobby in the lab?”
Millicent assured me that he was, but she insisted that Mr. Short was most eager to speak with me. I hoped to put off that meeting as long as possible.
Bobby Thompson—no relation to the New York Giant baseball great, though he did play in the Summer Twilight Softball League—was the head of the photo lab. In fact, he was the photo lab. If Bobby called in sick or took a day off, the photographers—all four of us—pitched in to replace him. I handed him two rolls: nothing more interesting than the triangular oil spots from behind the Mohawk Motel, which I wanted to match up against the one I’d shot on the service road Saturday night.
As I was giving Bobby the processing instructions, Artie Short goose-stepped into the lab with George Walsh on his heels.
“Miss Stone!” he barked, the special Monday-morning edition clutched in his hand. “Didn’t Millicent tell you I wanted to see you?”
“Sorry, Mr. Short. I was on my way to your office. I just stopped to give Bobby my film.”
“Damn it, young lady; I want an explanation for your piece in today’s paper!”
I just stared at him.
“Well?” said Short. “I’m waiting.”
“What exactly do you want me to explain?” I asked.
“Sources, Miss Stone. A journalist—a true journalist—checks his sources and gets confirmation of information before he publishes it. Especially on a sensitive case like this one.”
“Yes?”
“You wrote that Jordan Shaw took a room at the Mohawk Motel, for God’s sake!”
“I don’t understand.”
“You can’t write that! George, here, didn’t write that.”
“George didn’t know she’d taken a room at the Mohawk.” I said, and the publisher’s son-in-law winced.
“You can’t write that, young lady. There’s the girl’s reputation to consider. This is a disaster! Why did I ever let Charlie hire a girl? In all my years, I’ve never seen such . . .”
“Mr. Short, please!” I interrupted. “They towed the judge’s car from behind the motel on Saturday morning, her body was discovered less than a mile away that same afternoon, and the proprietress of the Mohawk identified her from a photograph I showed her. Jordan Shaw may not have spent the night at the motel, but she sure did check in.”
Short scanned the paper, trying to find some fault somewhere in my carefully worded article. “What’s your source on the car?” He was grasping at straws. “Who confirmed it was towed to Phil’s Garage?”
I looked at him incredulously. “I did,” I said. “I’m the source. While George was sharpening Frank Olney’s pencils, I tr
acked down the car myself. The sheriff will tell you; he checked the registration. It’s the judge’s car.”
“What about this bloody-tissue business? George says Olney never mentioned any tissue.”
“That’s because I found it. In a trash can at the Mohawk Motel.”
Short glared at his son-in-law, burning a hole in his withering presence. I knew I’d won. Then he told me he wanted to see everything I wrote on the Shaw case before going to press. I agreed—didn’t really have a choice—and he stomped out of the room with George Walsh trotting behind.
Bobby Thompson cringed at me in empathy. He liked the calm of the photo lab and didn’t react well to raised voices.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
I shrugged. “At least I’ve still got my job. And scoring off Georgie Porgie is gravy.”
After work, I returned home and lay down on the couch to think. I needed to have a look under Pukey Boyle’s car, contact Ginny White, and find Julio Hernandez. And that was just for starters. I nodded off after a couple of drinks, and awoke only when the phone rang. It was Frank Olney asking if I wanted to go along on a raid of Jean Trent’s place.
I rolled off the couch, slipped into my shoes, and pulled a brush through my unruly hair. Since it was Frank, I touched up my makeup; it couldn’t hurt. Then I grabbed my Leica and took ten rolls of film from the refrigerator. Downstairs, I waited on the porch for the sheriff in the cold, evening air.
Mrs. Giannetti emerged from her door and joined me outside. A widow in her seventies, short and broad, with a loose bun of salt-and-pepper hair tied in the back, she pulled a sweater tight around her shoulders and sidled up to me.
“Hello, Eleonora,” she began. “You’re so busy. I never see you anymore.”
I nodded and smiled politely. It wasn’t a question.
“Of course I hear you from time to time. Wooden floors. And bottles. So many bottles.”
“I try to walk around in slippers as you asked.”
“Yes, dear, and thank you. Your shoes are quite quiet now. It’s more the other noises. When you’re entertaining.” She looked at me expectantly.
“I see. Well, I’ll be sure to ask my guests to remove their shoes.”
“As long as they’re removing clothing . . .”
Wow. That was bold even for Mrs. Giannetti. I tried not to give her her victory.
“You know, Mrs. Giannetti,” I said, “some carpeting would dampen the noise. Remember you promised to look into it?”
That put her on her heels.
“Well, of course, dear,” she said. “I’ve inquired at Dumart’s over and over again, but they don’t have the rugs I want. They tell me they’ll have more come summertime.”
“You’d think carpeting would be easy to find in this town.”
“Yes, well, I always say it’s because of the war.”
The war?
“That reminds me, Eleonora,” she said. “This ugly business of Judge Shaw’s daughter. My friend Mrs. Isadora says that girl behaved shamelessly. I read your story in the paper. What can you tell me about it?”
“Nothing, I’m afraid,” I said as Frank Olney pulled up to the curb in an unmarked Ford Fairlane. “Here’s my ride. I must fly.”
Mrs. Giannetti stooped to see into the car. She frowned, then adjusted her sweater again before slipping back inside.
Frank was alone. I climbed in, and he threw the car into gear as I closed the door. At Market Street, we turned north onto Route 40, and Frank hit the gas. He picked up the radio to alert his men that we were on our way.
“I’ll be there in five minutes,” he said, clicking the mike with his right hand as he steered with his left. “Nobody moves till I get there. You all follow me in, roger?”
Four cars acknowledged the sheriff’s order, and he signed off.
“I don’t want those guys tipping off Jean Trent,” he said to me. “If Julio’s there, we’ll catch him with his pants down.”
“That would be a first,” I said. “Julio with an audience . . .”
Frank Olney laughed, his entire body shaking in the seat. I wondered how he fit behind the wheel.
We raced past Wilkens Corners, where four county prowlers crouched on the shoulder of the road. They jumped to life, one by one, first their headlamps blinked on, then the cherry tops began to spin. The engines roared and tires spun on the loose gravel as they fishtailed onto Route 40 to join the chase. Gosh, cops are sexy!
We sped into the Mohawk with four cars on our tail, lights still spinning but sirens silent. I was impressed by the sheriff’s timing and sense of the dramatic. The four prowlers skidded to a stop in front of the motel, headlights blazing against Jean Trent’s door.
“Ready, Ellie?” asked Frank. I nodded, and he yanked his cap onto his head. “Say, you sure look pretty today.”
I followed the sheriff to the front door, where Jean Trent was already waiting, barring the way.
“What do you want, Sheriff?” she scowled.
“I got a warrant, Jean. We’re coming in.”
Frank showed her the document through the storm door and explained he had the right to search her premises for a knife and any evidence of Julio Hernandez’s presence. I understood the law well enough to know that such a document gave Frank carte blanche to snoop through everything in the motel. Jean tried to block the door just the same, and Deputy Brunello was summoned to remove her from the sheriff’s path. She kicked and screamed, tried to scratch Brunello’s eyes out, but a short moment later, Frank had won the first round without much fuss.
A couple of troopers from Albany were due within the hour to dust the entire motel for fingerprints, so Olney instructed his men to put on their gloves for the search. I churned through my purse, retrieved a pair of white gloves I’d bought a few years earlier at B. Altman in New York, and pulled them on. Pat Halvey was assigned to the office; Pulaski and Wycek to the guest rooms; Spagnola and Miller to comb the grounds, especially the area near the garbage enclosure. Vinnie Brunello drew the chore of keeping Jean Trent at bay while Frank and I went through her place.
Jean’s inner sanctum was a cluttered nest of True Police Cases magazines, TV Guides, old newspapers, and half-eaten boxes of chocolate samplers. The stuffed couch, stained and brown, listed to the right, standing on three legs and a stack of dog-eared pulp novels. A coffee table, its veneer ringed and chipped, was moored on the dingy braided rug that stretched between the couch and the seventeen-inch, portable Zenith. On the walls, two yellowing landscapes, cut from a magazine, had curled out of their frames, showing cinderblock underneath. Atop a chest of drawers against the wall, Jean Trent’s pale eyes stared across the room from a recent black-and-white photograph. The place smelled of menthol cigarettes, mildew, and hairspray.
Training his sights on the drawers, Frank Olney pulled a pair of leather gloves onto his bearish hands and invited me to help him turn the place upside down. I made a quick survey of the room while Frank rummaged. There was a heap of Pall Mall and Salem butts crammed together in the standing ashtray next to the lumpy couch, and five empty Rheingold bottles stood like duckpins on the floor. I pulled a couple of magazines from between the cushions of the couch, flipped through them absently, then tossed them back to where I’d found them. I lifted a corner of the rug, was frightened by what I saw, and dropped it. A close inspection of Jean’s photograph convinced me it had been developed by an amateur—no quality judgment intended. I slid the back off the frame to look for a dedication or note, but the only words I found were “Kodak Paper.”
“I’m going to have a look in the bedroom and bath,” I told Frank, who interrupted his burrowing long enough to remind me to keep my gloves on.
Jean Trent’s double bed, quilted satin cover and all, nearly filled her boudoir wall to wall. There was barely room for a wastebasket and a nightstand. I discovered her clothes in a small closet, hidden behind a crooked folding door. On the shelf inside, there was a shoebox filled with yellowing letters, creased s
napshots, and memorabilia of what looked like a mostly forgettable life. Under the bed, dust colonies had long since prevailed over broom and mop, staking their claim to that netherworld. And there was a small strongbox amid the dirt. The lock was broken. Inside was a gun: a small, black Clerke revolver, unloaded but with a box of .22-caliber bullets. There was also an envelope with the gun’s registration papers, made out in the name of Jean Marie Trent. Everything looked in order, and Frank confirmed it when I showed him. He vaguely remembered having approved the permit a few years earlier.
“What should I do with it?” I asked.
“Leave it where you found it,” he said. “Jordan Shaw wasn’t killed with a gun.”
The bathroom was easily the cleanest room in the place. I smelled the ammonia and soap, used liberally during a very recent cleaning frenzy. The sink was ordered and scrubbed to a shine. The dull linoleum countertop was spotless, though bleached and discolored in places. My heels scratched over the remnants of a gritty cleanser left on the tiled floor. The grimy porcelain of the toilet and the mildewed tub, however, revealed the same neglect Jean Trent displayed in the rest of her housekeeping. Why clean only half of the bathroom? The room smelled clean, all right, but the caustic detergents could scarcely cover the familiar odor of hypo underneath. I had lived with that smell for years. Someone had been developing photographs in Jean Trent’s bathroom. And whoever it was didn’t want anyone else to know.
I searched the medicine cabinet above the sink, hoping to find evidence of a man’s presence, but the shelves were crammed exclusively with witch hazel, cold creams, depilatories, and other women’s products. I went through the cabinets under the sink, looking for the chemicals, basins, clothespins, enlarger, or other photo-developing paraphernalia I had expected to find. But the place was clean, so to speak.
I rejoined Frank Olney in the other room. He looked at me with a satisfied grin, slapping an X-acto knife into the leather-gloved palm of his left hand.
“What’s that?” I asked.
No Stone Unturned Page 8
