“She went out with a few of them.”
“How do you know this anyway?”
She looked away from me. “You know how some things are just known by everyone. It was common knowledge. Jordan dated older men in Boston, including her professors.”
I couldn’t tell if Fran was avoiding my eyes because she was lying or because she was ashamed for repeating malicious gossip.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. “What’s in it for you?”
Fran took the question in stride: “She may have stolen my boyfriend, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy to see her dead. She was my best friend once.”
“And you think it was this professor from Boston who did it?”
She shrugged. “You’re the hotshot reporter in the news. You figure it out.”
I drove Fran back to her car at Gem Cleaners sometime after one, no longer worried Greg Hewert or Glenda Whalen would emerge from a shadow. We said nothing to each other except, “See you,” and I drove away once she’d started her car.
The stillness of the night magnified the confusion in my head, and I wondered if I was nearing a solution or wading deeper into a labyrinth of false leads and rumors. Who killed Jordan Shaw? I didn’t know. I had learned a little about her life but almost nothing about how she’d died. Three unknown men had visited her room at the Mohawk Motel within an hour or two of her death, and no one could tell me what they looked like. Perhaps Fred Peruso’s faith in me was unjustified.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1960
I set out for Boston at four thirty in the morning Wednesday, packing my uneaten pizza and a Thermos of coffee for the drive on the new Massachusetts Turnpike. Eating proved difficult in the car; my swollen lip made it hard to chew. I thought of Fadge, who could steer and shift gears in traffic like Buck Baker while wolfing down a cheeseburger and guzzling a bottle of Coke. I dropped a slice of pizza upside down on my lap and nearly drove off the road.
I arrived in Boston a little before nine, stopped for fresh coffee at a Howard Johnson’s, and tried Ginny’s number. No answer. After a few inquiries for directions, I located Jordan and Ginny’s apartment on Marlborough Street near Exeter in the Back Bay. The six-story brick building was a dignified prewar structure. According to the directory in front, Shaw and White occupied apartment 4E. I stood outside the locked lobby door looking in, marveling at the luxury two college girls were enjoying. Granite floors—square white tiles trimmed with green and gold borders; heavy, mahogany doors and thick, beveled glass, with delicate flowers and leaves etched in frosty designs; polished brass handles and mailboxes; oil paintings in gilded frames hanging from detailed moldings on the cream-colored wallpaper. I buzzed 4E and waited, buzzed it again and waited. Nothing. I tried the door, knowing full well it was locked, then climbed back down to the street. I paced back and forth, scanning the street for triangular oil spots and finding none. After a few minutes, an elderly woman, yanking a recalcitrant pug behind her, hobbled up the stoop, through the door, and into the lobby. I jumped into action and followed her in. She didn’t notice me until after she’d picked up her dog. Then she threw me a suspicious scowl.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said. “Just on my way up to four-E.”
“Four-E? Are you a friend of theirs?” she asked.
“No,” I said simply. She hadn’t asked what I wanted, but continued giving me her opinions.
“Well, I don’t approve. When I was a girl, we didn’t allow men to call unchaperoned.”
I tried to squeeze past her, and her dog nipped at my elbow.
“Oh, I knew they would end up making trouble,” she continued. “I warned Dennis, our superintendent, when they moved in. Single girls playing rock-and-roll music, doing that twist dancing, and entertaining visitors at all hours!”
“Do you mean they throw late-night parties?”
“No, not parties! Intimate gatherings. Disgraceful, I told Dennis, scandalous. Two young girls—not out of college, mind you—keeping company with men, not boys . . .”
“Have you ever seen this man here?” I asked, showing her the photograph of Jordan and the two men in India.
She took the snapshot between her bony fingers and held it at arm’s length to focus on the faces. “Oh, yes,” she said. “He was here all right. I saw him a week ago yesterday. I remember exactly because it was the day poor little Leon was keeping poorly.” The dog. “It was raining terribly, but little Leon still has to do his business, you know. I ran into that young man in the elevator and asked him if he would be so kind as to walk Leon to the curb and back. And he refused! Imagine!” She shook her head in woe. “He said his glasses would fog up again! Poor Leon,” and she kissed the dog on the head.
She handed the photograph back to me. Jordan’s handsome professor wasn’t wearing glasses.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said. “But which one of these men did you see here last Tuesday?”
“That one,” she said, pointing to the waxy-skinned tagalong. “That’s the one who refused to walk little Leon.”
I rode the elevator to the fourth floor without a plan; I had no keys, and Ginny wasn’t home. As I crept down the hallway, my heels muffled by the carpet runner, I knew I intended to break in, but how could a law-abiding person like me admit to that?
Apartment 4E was at the end of the hall, the last door on the southeast side. First I listened, and, hearing nothing, I buzzed the doorbell. No answer, so I tried the door. Locked. A noise from the far end of the hall sent me ducking for cover in the stairwell, but when nobody emerged, I returned to the door of 4E.
I pressed my ear to the solid oak again, and that’s when I noticed the smell. Hypo? My first thought was that Ginny, too, had been developing photographs. But then the faint odor grew distinct, and a horrible realization crawled up my spine. Gas.
I rattled the doorknob, pushed hard at the door, but that was useless. Then I stepped back and surveyed the corridor, looking for help. Behind me on the wall was a glass case with a fire hose and an ax. I grabbed the ax, aimed it at the doorknob, and swung, missing my target by at least a foot. I chopped again and again, a fourth and fifth time in quick succession until the lock gave way to splinters. I was inside. That’s when I realized how wrong I’d been. It wasn’t gas I’d smelled, but rotting death.
Covering my nose, I checked each room, finally discovering Ginny in the bathroom. Fully clothed, she lay face down on the white tiles. To my inexpert eye, she looked at least a couple of days dead. I was overcome with a sudden revulsion and vomited into the sink next to the poor girl. Tears streaming down my cheeks, I found the wherewithal to throw open the bathroom window, then, with a wet washcloth over my nose and mouth, I knelt beside the body. Ginny hadn’t died from a broken neck; that much was clear, even to a layman like me. The back of her head was bashed in, and there was blood everywhere. If there were any gashes sliced out of her skin, I couldn’t see them.
I wanted to cover her, to comfort her somehow, to give her some dignity in her slumped, bloated death, but that was absurd. What did Ginny White care now? I was not there to pray over her or to weep for her; her family and friends would take care of those chores.
Pushing myself to my feet, I wiped my eyes and runny nose, and I fought back the urge to vomit again. I knew my time inside the apartment was limited, that the police would never let me see or use any evidence relevant to the case. So I decided to do the next best thing: copy everything with my camera. I pulled out my Leica and machine-gunned two rolls of film and a couple of frames of a third, capturing the body and bathroom from all angles. Then, five minutes after breaking down the door, I finally called the police.
Gloves on, I rifled through Jordan’s room. Above her desk on a shelf, she had one of those portable Japanese record players and a pile of forty-fives. There was a French disc on the turntable, “T’aimer follement,” by someone called Johnny Hallyday. She had been a French major, after all, even if the name Johnny Hallyday didn’t sound very French to me. A standa
rd, black Bell telephone sat on top of the desk; a tortoise-shell fountain pen, ink cartridges, and stationery in the top drawer. There was a checkbook, a calendar, a datebook, a bundle of letters, and a small photo album in the middle drawer, and schoolwork and telephone books in the bottom drawer. I wasn’t interested in Jordan’s finances or studies, so I plunged directly into her datebook, shooting page after page at a furious clip. I shuffled through the letters, sure I’d find plenty of metered mail from Tufts, but there was none. Many of the letters had come from her parents: weekly missives from home, as trivial as they were perfectly written. There were a few others signed Jeffrey, and I photographed them without even reading them. No time for that. Near the bottom of the pile, I found a resealed envelope posted July 15, 1958, from New Holland, New York. No return address. I tore it open and found a single sheet of paper with a brief message scrawled in pencil: “Fuck you, cunt! Rot in hell!” No need to photograph that; I was sure I’d remember. And I was sure Pukey Boyle had written it.
I glanced at my watch: 9:32. I took up the photo album next. Snapshots of Jordan alone, snapshots of Ginny alone, Jordan and Ginny together, Judge and Mrs. Shaw with Jordan . . . A gallery of people above suspicion. No outsiders. No handsome travelers. I replaced her belongings and closed the drawer. That’s when I noticed the purse on the floor beside the bed.
Inside, I found Jordan’s keys, her wallet, her driver’s license, some cash, and a Diners’ Club card. I thought it curious she hadn’t taken the purse to New Holland for Thanksgiving, but then I realized she had. Folded into a side pocket, a thin, white sheet of paper provided the proof. It was a receipt from the Mohawk Motel, dated Friday, November 25, 1960. How had her purse found its way back to Boston?
I sat on Jordan’s bed and slid open the bedside-table drawer to examine its contents: empty except for a Bible, a box of Slim-pax tampons, and a compact with some kind of dark-green, aromatic powder inside. Nearby sat a crumpled icing cone with dark crust on its nozzle. I had no idea what that was. As I put my hand down to push off the bed, I felt the crackling of paper behind me. The pillow. I pulled back the covers, exposing a letter stashed beneath, written by a man and posted at Tufts University. Before I could open it, there was a noise in the hallway: the police. I didn’t think; I just stuffed the envelope into my blouse.
I dashed from Jordan’s bedroom and slid into an awkward seat on the couch in the parlor just as two patrolmen crept through the front door, service revolvers pointed at my chest and head, respectively.
After nearly blowing my brains out from the doorway, the police treated me quite nicely. Detective Sergeant Pat Morrissey arrived a few minutes after the patrolmen but didn’t talk to me until his men had briefed him, chalked the body, and dusted the apartment for prints. A tall, strapping specimen, he wore his wavy hair slicked back like Robert Mitchum. I found him terribly handsome. He must have thought the patrolmen had searched me, because he never did.
“My boys tell me you discovered the body,” he said, sitting next to me on the linen couch. He crossed his legs. “Mind telling me what you were doing in here?”
“Not at all, Detective,” I said, a little short of breath, feeling the letter’s sharp creases against my breast. “I write for the New Holland Republic, a local paper in upstate New York.” I showed him my press card.
“Let’s hear the punch line; I’m an impatient guy.”
“I’m investigating the murder of Virginia White’s roommate, Jordan Shaw. She’s from New Holland.”
“You’re telling me her roommate was killed? That’s a kick in the head. When?”
“Last Friday night. At first, it looked like one of those small-town murders that happen every so often: grisly, but run-of-the-mill, if you know what I mean.”
Morrissey asked what the New Holland investigation had turned up.
“Not much,” I said. “That’s why I came to Boston. I was hoping to get some information from her roommate.”
“Looks like you made the trip for nothing,” he said.
I smiled sheepishly. I couldn’t very well tell him I’d found the motel receipt in Jordan’s purse; he’d arrest me for tampering with evidence. I’d just have to trust him to find the receipt on his own.
“By the way,” he asked, “was that you who puked in the bathroom?”
I blushed. “I could sure use a drink.”
“Can’t help you there. Sorry you had to find her that way, but that’s why you call the police before breaking down a door. Nice job you did, though.”
“Thanks,” I said, and instantly felt like a fool. That probably wasn’t a compliment. “Actually, I thought I smelled gas. Otherwise, I would have called the police right away.”
Morrissey offered me a cigarette, then asked me when I was going back to New Holland.
“Maybe tomorrow. I still want to talk to some people here.”
“Give me a call when you get a room,” he said, standing up and offering me his card. “I’ll want to talk to you later. Now go get yourself a stick of gum.”
I rose from the couch and shook his hand. “I can go?” I asked, covering my mouth.
“It’s a free country.”
I drove to Medford and stopped at a drugstore on Broadway advertising fast film processing and dropped off one roll—the letters only. I would process the film of the body and datebook back in New Holland. For two dollars and a bit of flirting, the clerk put my film at the head of the line. My pictures would be ready in two hours. Back inside my car, I unfolded the letter I had stashed down my blouse.
Dear Jordan, 14 November 1960
There can be no more avoiding the difficult task. Since I believe you to be unwilling or unable to end our love affair, I must do it myself. I’ve explained to you time and again that our relationship depended on circumstances beyond our own wills and desires. I told you the day would come when we must part. Today is that day.
Your youthful zeal and guileless passion, which I so often urged you to restrain, ultimately destroyed the secrecy of our affair. My wife found one of the love notes you’d slipped into my jacket. She threatened to leave me and take my son with her. You must realise that we cannot go on, so I have no choice but to break off all contact with you.
My love for you will not fade, but as you know me to be a man of resolve, please accept my decision. I will never forget you; don’t forget me.
The letter was unsigned. Whoever had written it didn’t want to leave any footprints.
It was a little past two when I made the long climb up the steps from College Avenue to Miner Hall. The trees were bare, and a wet wind blew cold down my collar. I stepped into the lobby, grateful for the sweltering radiator heat, and checked the directory. The Romance Languages Department was on the second floor. Past a frosted pane with black lettering, a lone secretary was typing away at a large, wooden desk. In her late twenties, her brown hair tied back in a tight bun, she was so intent on her task that she didn’t notice me enter. I cleared my throat twice before she looked up from behind a pair of cat-eye glasses.
“Yes?” she asked with a bemused smile. She had one snaggled incisor on the left side, which she didn’t seem to mind.
“I was hoping you could help me,” I said.
“Who’s your professor, miss?”
I smiled, noticed the nameplate on her desk: Muriel Rosen. “Actually, I’m not a student.”
“Well, if you’re not a student, you must be here about Jordan Shaw.”
“You know about that?”
She shrugged. “The dean called our chairman yesterday to break the news. Who are you, then? You don’t look like a cop, that’s for sure.”
“No, I’m not a cop,” I said, wishing I could be. “I’m a reporter. Ellie Stone. I’m interested in her academics and social life.”
Muriel shook her head. “You’ve come to the wrong place. She never spent much time here. At least not for the past year or so.”
“I thought she studied French.”
“Y
es, but she finished most of her courses in her freshman and sophomore years.”
“So you knew her?”
“Sure. Nice, smart, polite. She used to be a top student, active in department functions, mixers, and the like. Just kind of took a powder after her junior year.”
“Any theories on why she disappeared?” I asked.
Muriel sized me up. She was an odd girl, and not afraid to make you feel uncomfortable. She shrugged.
“Found something better to do, I guess. No law against that.”
“You said she was smart.”
“She won a prize her sophomore year for best essay in French. She had great promise but seemed to lose interest after that summer.”
“Which summer was that again?”
“Last year,” she said. “After her trip to India.”
“You keep track of these things, do you?” I asked.
“That’s my job. Jordan Shaw was a star student. We were disappointed when she lit out.”
“Did she have any friends here? Boyfriends? Suitors? Any professors interested in her?”
Muriel peered over her glasses at me. “So that’s your game? Digging for dirt? Well, there was plenty of interest all around, but our faculty is very proper. This isn’t France, after all. And you should be ashamed, Miss Stone.”
“I am. But that’s my job. What about the men in this photograph?” I asked, producing the snapshot Audrey Shaw had given me, the one of Jordan in a bazaar in India.
Muriel stood, smoothed her woolen skirt, and took the picture from my hand. She adjusted her glasses and took a quick look.
“Never seen them before in my life,” she said simply. “Nice snap of Jordan, though. My, she was pretty.”
I trudged back down the long sets of stairs to College Avenue, taking a seat on the bottom step, where I lit a cigarette. For a few minutes I just watched the students passing by, wondering what I should do next. The French Department had been a washout, and I still had a half hour before my film would be ready.
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