No Stone Unturned

by James W. Ziskin

  “India, you say?”

  “That’s correct. His father was with the British colonial administration, according to this. And they stayed on after Independence.”

  “What about his family here? Is there any mention of a wife and son?”

  Gloria ruffled some pages. “Married Diana Reynolds, American citizen, on June 21, 1952. No record of children here.”

  I found Hakim Mohammed in the graduate lounge and recognized him as one of the students who had helped Nichols the day before. He didn’t seem to like me any better this day.

  “I want to ask you about Professor Jerrold,” I said. “Do you know any reason why someone would want to do him harm?”

  “No,” he said, staring out the window, smoking a cigarette. “Dr. Jerrold is liked by all.”

  “Someone suggested you might know why he needed police protection.”

  Hakim chuckled, still not caring to look at me. “I don’t suppose it was Prakash Singh who suggested that?” I didn’t answer. “It’s curious that he should point to me, since he and Dr. Jerrold have their own differences.”

  “My impression was that Jerrold was his benefactor here in the department. What differences do they have?”

  “I don’t know what tricks he’s up to, but their friendship has enjoyed a recent improvement. Since the start of the semester. Before that, the bloody Sardar was on very thin ice.”

  I begged his pardon.

  “Sardar means ‘Sikh.’ Prakash Singh is a Sikh. Turban, beard, and kirpan.” He’d lost me again. “The dagger,” he explained. “It’s called a kirpan. All the bloody Sardars carry them.”

  “I think I’ve heard lies from just about everyone in this place, Mr. Mohammed. No story matches the last. Why should I believe what you’re telling me?”

  He looked at me for the first time. “Believe whom you will, Miss Stone. I’ve told you the truth.”

  I stared him in the eye: “Do you own a car?”

  “I am a student. I share rooms and meals, and I have books to buy. I can’t afford a car.”

  I had just one more stop before leaving: Jordan and Ginny’s apartment building, where I looked underneath Ginny’s two-toned Buick for oil spots. None. Ditto for the cars in the other parking spaces. A search of the immediate area on Marlborough Street yielded no triangular oil drippings either, but it appeared the street sweeper had passed recently, so that didn’t prove anything.

  At four o’clock Thursday afternoon, I got onto the Mass Turnpike and headed west. I stopped for gas at Framingham and called Charlie Reese collect from a phone booth while the attendant filled the tank and checked the oil.

  “I’m driving back now,” I said. “I’ll be there in about three hours, and I want to run some film right away. Can you wait for me at the paper?”

  “I’ll be here. They’ve just arrested Jean Trent as an accessory, and we’re working on that story,” he sighed. “We’ve got to redo the front page.”

  You have ample opportunity to think while staring at the lines in the road for three hours. My thoughts bounced from New Holland and Jordan’s murder to Medford, Ginny White’s death, and D. J. Nichols’s disappearance. The responsible party had to be one of the people I’d met at the Engineering Department, but who? And why? Nichols wasn’t the Mohawk Murderer or the Boston Basher, I felt sure of that. I also eliminated the secretary, Phyllis, and Professor Benjamin from my short list. I suspected Jerrold most of all, because I believed he was closest to Jordan. And because he had charmed me with his slippery appeal. Roy had been a little too helpful to be trusted, but could a man I’d shared coffee with, a man who smiled so broadly, actually have killed two young women with his bare hands? Hakim seemed the perfect suspect—somehow sinister and churlish—but I believed he was telling the truth.

  Or was it possible I hadn’t met the murderer at all? I considered my movements in Boston. I had only scratched the surface of two recently ended lives, and there was no shortage of possible avenues of investigation. I hadn’t managed to talk to Dennis, the superintendent of Jordan’s building; I had interviewed only a handful of students and faculty from the Engineering Department; I’d had no time to search out Jordan’s academic advisor, roommates from previous years, or Ginny’s parents. On one hand, I felt my investigation slipping away; it was unfurling too rapidly, growing exponentially. And George Walsh was encroaching by the minute. On the other hand . . . Well, on the other hand, nothing. I had nothing. This was an opportunity to make something of my three years in New Holland. But I was stuck.

  I also thought about Jordan’s Boston bedroom. The order didn’t surprise me, but the dearth of personal touches did. Aside from the one letter under her pillow, I’d found only generic articles among her belongings, no intriguing faces in her photo album, nothing to suggest the emancipated behavior I had come to discover. Her room looked like one of those model homes, furnished with conventional, inoffensive trappings, right down to the bland framed photographs on the shelves. Could her sentimental side be so cool, so removed from the passions of her conduct, that she left no evidence? Was she capable of switching off her emotions when it came to cataloguing her love life? And if so, why had she kept the Dear Jordan letter under her pillow? And how could I forget the mushy love paean she’d written to Ginny about her night in Fatehpur Sikri with D. J.? The questions spun around in my head, but I kept arriving at the same two answers: either she had hidden the memorabilia of her love life elsewhere, or Ginny’s murderer had made off with some of Jordan’s belongings. If so, he’d missed the letter under her pillow.

  On my return to New Holland, I took a few minutes to make a phone call I’d been neglecting for days: Greg Hewert. I found his name in the phone book; he was living at home with his folks.

  “You’re that girl reporter, aren’t you?” he asked when I identified myself.

  “That’s right. I wanted to ask you some questions about Jordan Shaw, if you don’t mind.”

  “Are you planning to twist what I say and make her look bad? Because if you are, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Not at all, I promise. Judge Shaw has asked me to help investigate Jordan’s murder for her sake. I can have him call you, if you like.”

  “Never mind,” he said. “I saw you talking to the judge and Mrs. Shaw the other night at the wake. What do you want to know?”

  “For starters, can you tell me where you were last Friday night?”

  There was a long silence on the line. Finally, Greg spoke.

  “So it’s like that?” he chuckled. “This is about me, not Jordan. Well, I don’t have anything to hide. I was out at Blue Diamond Bar Friday from about nine thirty till one thirty when I went home to bed.”

  “Did anyone see you there?” I asked.

  He laughed. “About hundred and fifty people, I guess. And I woke my ma when I got home, so she can vouch for me.”

  “You’re quite well prepared. Like a Boy Scout,” I said, flirting a little. I figured it might put him at ease. “If only everyone were as cooperative as you.”

  “Any time you’d like to question me personally, I’m game.”

  Okay, maybe I had gone too far.

  “Can you tell me about Jordan?” I asked. “How well did you know her?”

  “We were old friends. I’ve known her since grammar school,” he said, more sober now that the subject had turned back to Jordan Shaw. “Whoever did this to her should fry in the electric chair and then rot in hell. If I get my hands on him, I’ll kill him myself.”

  “Did you ever date Jordan?” I asked abruptly, and I got a dial tone as an answer.

  My film of Ginny’s body turned out to be grislier than I had remembered. In my haste to photograph the scene, I had paid little attention to the lighting, and the result was a grainy, ghostly look. Charlie Reese shook his head.

  “How do you manage to focus a camera on a dead body?”

  “It’s not like I make a habit of it,” I said. “And it wasn’t easy. I was sick in th
e sink.”

  “Looks like a still life,” he said, though not as a joke.

  “Do you know what the French call still lifes?” I asked. “Nature morte. Dead nature.”

  “And that’s apropos of what?” he asked.

  “Nothing. Just feeling philosophical.”

  “Just showing off is more like it. So who do you think painted this scene?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I met a couple of men in Boston who might fit the bill, but I just don’t know.”

  “What are you looking for?” asked Charlie. “What would wrap this up for you?”

  “A car,” I said slowly, staring at Ginny White’s bloated body. “A poorly maintained car.”

  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1960

  “You’ve got to let me see Julio, Frank.”

  “Forget it, Ellie. His lawyer doesn’t want anyone talking to him.”

  “Please, Frank,” I said, using all my feminine wiles on my new chum. “I’ve played straight with you. Just give me ten minutes alone with him.”

  “I appreciate the way you’ve written this thing, but I can’t. If our case against him gets thrown out because of some monkeyshines like this, I’m the one who’s got to answer to the public. And to Judge Shaw.”

  “That’s not it. You’re afraid maybe the kid’s innocent and you’ll have to start over. Come on, Frank, you know there was another murder in Boston. Doesn’t that clear Julio?”

  “Hell, no,” he said. “From what I understand, the White girl was killed Saturday evening or Sunday morning. That would have given Julio plenty of time to drive to Boston and back before I picked him up. Don’t forget, he disappeared for four days.”

  “The kid trusts me. Maybe he’ll tell me what he saw that night.”

  “What he saw was Jordan Shaw undressing. And when she caught him, he broke her neck and buried her body in the woods.”

  “You’re burying your head in the sand, Frank. There are too many questions here. Don’t you think it’s important to know who those three men were who visited her that night?”

  “I know who one of them was, and he’s cooling his heels in a cell downstairs right now. It’s a free country, Ellie. People have the right to go where they please, visit who they want. I don’t care if the Shriners threw a party in her room that night; I know I got the right man.”

  I fought to maintain my calm, remembering Charlie Reese’s admonition on estranging the goodwill of the sheriff.

  “Why don’t you talk to Jean Trent?” he offered. “We brought her in for accessory to murder, harboring a fugitive, and obstruction of justice.”

  “She doesn’t know anything. Please, Frank. I promise you I won’t print a word of what he tells me.”

  The sheriff thought about it, probably weighing the damage I could do to him with a negative article.

  “Joe Murray is his lawyer,” he said finally, glaring at me. “You know what a pain in the neck he is. He’d get the Israelis to release Eichmann if they put too much starch in his shorts. I don’t want him to know I let you talk to Hernandez. Tell you what I’ll do: I’ll let you go downstairs to talk to Halvey—he’s sitting suicide watch in the cell next to the kid’s. See if you can stand five minutes with Halvey, then I’ll call him out of there and give you ten minutes with Julio.”

  The Montgomery County Administration Building straddled the line between the Town of New Holland and the Town of Poole, northwest of the river, on Route 22. A three-story brick building, it housed jail cells in the basement, sheriff’s office on the ground floor, courtrooms on the second, and administrative offices on the third. I had cut my teeth in the old building when I began working for the Republic a couple of years before. From family court to county board meetings, I had spent my share of meaningless evenings doodling into my notepad. The local judges were known for leniency and an inclination toward probation. The accused’s families got to keep their husbands and sons, while the county probation officers surrendered gradually to the inconsequence of their efforts. The jail’s population consisted of Saturday-night brawlers, wife beaters, drunken drivers, and petty thieves. Once, an accused child molester tried to hang himself from a water pipe and was knocked unconscious when the pipe broke and clocked him on the head. He succeeded in flooding the cell and was roughed up in the yard by the other inmates for forcing them to evacuate the building on a cold day.

  Julio was the most notorious criminal the Montgomery County Jail had seen in recent memory, and as such he occupied the VIP suite—the center cell in the block. Pat Halvey, a finger in his ear, was sitting in the next cell, leaning back against the wall on two legs of his chair, and didn’t hear me coming. When I called his name, the chair slid out from under him, and he crashed to the floor.

  “Darn it, Ellie,” he said, picking himself up. “Why don’t you make some noise when you come into a room?”

  A gale of laughter rose from the cellblock.

  “What do you want, anyway?”

  I glanced at Julio, who’d sat up on his bed in the next cell. He stared at me with dark, miserable eyes. I turned back to Halvey and asked him how his bowling game was coming along. That was all it took; he treated me to a dissertation on the new spin he’d been working on.

  “What do you say we go bowling sometime, Ellie?” he asked. “I could teach you.”

  “I don’t know, Pat. I’ve never seen your picture in the High Rollers’ column of the paper. Do I want to be seen bowling with a guy who’s never made the High Rollers?”

  “You will soon, don’t worry about that. I’m saving up for a new Brunswick Black Beauty, and with the spin I’m working on . . .”

  Frank Olney left me twisting for at least ten minutes before calling Halvey away.

  “How are they treating you, Julio?” I asked the shadowy figure, once we were alone.

  He didn’t speak. He just stared at me.

  Invisible voices called out from the other dark cells: “Hey, spic, we’re gonna get you! You killed a white girl, spic. We’re gonna cut you into little Puerto Rican pieces!”

  “Tell me what I can do for you,” I whispered, once the taunts had died down.

  His head dropped into his hands, and I could tell he was sobbing.

  “Tell me, Julio,” I said. “I know you didn’t do this. Let me help. What can I do for you?”

  “You would help?” he asked finally, lifting his head and wiping his nose on his sleeve. He rose from the bed and approached the bars that separated us. “Would you talk to my mother?”

  “Of course,” I said. “What do you want me to tell her?”

  “Just tell her I’m okay. And . . .” He brought his face to the bars. “Tell her I’m innocent.”

  “All right,” I said. “But I can do even more to help you. If you’d tell me where you hid the film, I could get you out of here.”

  “I told you there isn’t any film!” he snapped, and turned away from the bars.

  The voices returned, this time threatening me, the spic lover, with unspeakable acts of wickedness.

  “The sheriff’s determined to hang this on you,” I said, still whispering. “And if I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t want to try my luck in front of a jury. You heard those guys,” I threw my head back to indicate the other inmates. “You can expect the same enlightened attitudes at your trial. They’re going to want someone to pay for what happened to Jordan, and you’re handy. So, please, tell me where the film is.”

  “There is no film,” he repeated, more softly this time. Then he returned to his bed, lay down, and turned his back to me. I could see his shoulders shaking silently in the semidarkness.

  “He tell you what you wanted to know?” asked the sheriff when I came out. I shook my head. “That doesn’t surprise me. He’s not going to help you, because he killed her.”

  “Tell me, Frank,” I said, ignoring his gloating. “Did you ever find Jordan’s effects? What happened to her clothes? Her purse? Her keys?”

  “No, we haven’t found any o
f that. My idea is Julio buried them somewhere or burned the whole lot. Why?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about her keys. Maybe her killer used them to get into her apartment in Boston.”

  “Say, I’ll bet you’re right,” said Olney, leaning forward in his swivel chair. “Hernandez grabbed the keys, drove to Boston, and bashed in the roommate’s head.”

  “Why, Frank? There’s no reason for him to go to Boston. And why would he cut that gash in Jordan’s pelvis?”

  The sheriff’s eyes narrowed and grew dark. “I think it’s voodoo. Santoría, they call it in the islands. I’ve been studying up on it, Ellie, down to the library. And I think that’s the answer.”

  I just stared at the sheriff dumbly, turned slowly, and walked out to my car.

  I was stopped at a red light on Market Street just inside the city limits when I happened to glance in my rearview mirror. Idling behind me, purring a soft rumble, was Pukey Boyle’s maroon Hudson Hornet.

  The sensation was an unsettling one, as I recalled my encounter with Glenda Whalen. When the light changed, I turned left to see if he would follow. I shifted my eyes from the road to the mirror and saw the shiny car swing into view. I tried a few more side streets, and the Hudson marked me at every turn, hanging back about thirty yards. As I approached the intersection of Franklin and Van Der Meer, the traffic light blinked to yellow. I eased up on the accelerator, letting the amber ripen, then gunned through a fresh red light, leaving Pukey Boyle and the maroon Hudson behind.

  In late 1957, Don Czerulniak had used his influence—not to say his weight—to move the DA’s office to the top floor of the New Holland Bank Building. Erected in 1899, the ten-story edifice was remarkable for its height, one of the earliest “skyscrapers” in upstate New York. The bank had been half-empty, in disrepair, and the first choice of eight city aldermen for a new parking lot. Within a year of the DA’s move, however, the New Holland Bank Building was filled with city and county offices, and the owner, Harvey Richards, had drawn up plans for a complete renovation due to begin in January 1961. The DA had saved the historic building from demolition and saved county taxpayers a couple hundred thousand dollars at the same time.