by C. R. Corwin
“You have a keen eye, Mr. Chen.” I leaned over his desk and handed him the clipping a second time.
From the look on his face you’d swear it was five in the afternoon and not nine in the morning. “I suppose you want me to find them for you.”
“You only have to find three of them,” I said. “We already know where Rollie Stumpf is.”
The significance of the photo finally dawned on him. “Ah-the woebegone spouse of Gwendolyn Moffitt-Stumpf.”
“That’s right. The other three could be anywhere.”
I got to work marking up the Sunday edition while Eric worked his on-line magic. It took him only fifteen minutes to determine that Don Rodino was dead. “Nothing fishy though,” he said. “Vietnam 1965. Navy pilot shot down over Hanoi.”
Just before noon he found Herbert Giffels. In a cemetery in Zanesville. “Must have been a car accident or something,” Eric said. “Wife died the same day. September 20, 1983.”
The search for Elgin “Bud” Wetzel took all afternoon. “Here he is,” Eric yawned at a quarter to five. “Beaufort, South Carolina.”
“Still alive?”
“Looks like it. Apparently he’s something of an expert on eighteenth century candle snuffers. He’s got a website-www. wickmeister. com.”
“How about a phone number? He got one of those antique things?” I asked.
And so I called Rollie’s last surviving debate partner. The voice of the man who answered was deep and clear, with only a hint that he might be on the south side of middle age: “Wickmeister!”
“This wouldn’t be Bud, would it?” I asked.
“It’s been a long time since anybody called me that,” he said.
I introduced myself. Told him I’d graduated from Hemphill a year before he did. That my late husband Lawrence had covered the state debate tournament for The Harbinger. “As I recall, he drove down to Columbus on the bus with you.”
“I do remember somebody pestering us with stupid questions while we were trying to prepare,” he said, adding a faint “heh-heh-heh” on the end to let me know he was joking.
It wasn’t all that funny, but I mustered up the best laugh I could. Then I got down to business, bending the truth every whichaway as I went along. “The reason I called is that I’m writing a memoir of sorts. And 1957 was such a big year for Lawrence and me. Him writing for the college newspaper. Both of us graduating. Getting married. And that horrible murder. It was the same day as the debate tournament as I recall.”
He corrected me. “The day after.”
I corrected him. “Actually, the police said he was killed in the middle of night. So I guess we’re both right.”
The champion debater in him wouldn’t let it go. “If it was after midnight, then it was the next day.”
I capitulated. “You’re right, of course. Anyway, I’ve been trying to piece everything together chronologically. When exactly Lawrence was in Columbus and when he was back here. And going through his old clippings I found the story he wrote on the debate tournament. And the photo that ran with it. The four of you with your big trophies. I figured somebody smart enough to win a state debate tournament would have a good memory.”
That really puffed him up: “‘Resolved…That the United States should discontinue direct economic aid to foreign countries.’ Don and Herbie handled first and second affirmatives. Rollie and I handled the rebuttal. We made those Wooster College boys sound like a pack of retarded chimpanzees, I’ll tell you.”
A number of snappy retorts came to mind. I wisely kept them to myself. “Lawrence and I knew the boy who was killed a little-David Delarosa was his name-and we were both shaken up. As you can imagine. I’ve been tying to remember exactly when the bus got back to Hannawa. I know I picked Lawrence up but I can’t remember if it was morning or afternoon or just when.”
Bud made my ear buzz with a long, thoughtful moan. “Boy, you’re making me go back a long time.”
“Unfortunately it has been a long time,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic. The reason I was asking him about the bus schedule, of course, was to humor my silly suspicions about Gwen: That just maybe she was the Miss Forty Below in David’s letter to Gordon. That maybe David had succeeded in seducing her that Wednesday night at Jericho’s. That maybe with Rollie down in Columbus she simply couldn’t resist David’s ample animal charm. That maybe she was the girl for whom David flipped the seven on his door into an L. “That L means later,” David told Howard Shay, “It means I’m getting laid.” So maybe Gwen was the one who knocked David over the balcony, and filled with fear and shame continued to batter his pretty face on the hard floor, long after he was dead.
“You know,” said Bud, “I don’t think we all came back together from Columbus. In fact, I’m sure we didn’t.”
I was puzzled. “Didn’t come back together? With my Lawrence you mean?”
“No,” he said. “I mean the debate team. The tournament ended at four. We got our trophies and your husband took that picture that ran in the college paper. We were all supposed to go out for dinner with the debate coach, Professor Cook, stay another night at the hotel and then come back on the Thursday morning bus. But Rollie was anxious to get back. He had something waiting for him the rest of us didn’t. A girlfriend. He asked Professor Cook for permission to take the overnight bus.”
I was more than puzzled now. I was flat out thrown for a loop. “What time did that bus leave Columbus?”
Bud let go with another one of his irritating moans. “I have no idea,” he said. “I do remember Rollie going to dinner with us. Your Lawrence, too. But I know Rollie didn’t come with us afterward on our tour of the local rathskellers.”
“What about my Lawrence,” I asked. “He took the tour, did he?”
Bud laughed like a nervous goat. “As I recall, it was his idea.”
I fought off my old feelings of betrayal and got back on the subject at hand. “About those trophies,” I asked, “did you get to keep them? Or did they end up in a glass case somewhere?”
“Professor Cook got one for the case outside his office. But, sure, we got to keep our individual trophies.”
“Just out of curiosity-exactly what did your trophies say?” I asked.
Either Bud was staring directly at his trophy or his memory was very good: “First Place, State of Ohio Collegiate Debate Tournament, Columbus, 1956-57.”
I jotted that down. “And did they also put your name on it?”
“Not the same day we won them of course,” he said. “But later Professor Cook collected them and had our names engraved.”
“All four of them?”
“No. Just our separate names.”
“I mean did he have all four trophies engraved?”
“I suppose he did.”
“But you don’t remember for sure?”
***
Tuesday, June 12
I called the Greyhound station as soon as I got to work. In the sweetest voice I could muster I asked the sleepy man on the other end if he had any bus schedules from 1957 lying around. He questioned my sanity in the sweetest voice he could muster. He also suggested that I call the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland. “They got a whole bunch of old train and bus memorabilia up there,” he said. The word memorabilia stumbled off his tongue as if he’d never had the opportunity to use the word before.
I took his advice. The librarian at the historical society, out of some sense of sisterhood I suppose, spent the next four hours digging through the files. She called me back at two o’clock, just as I was heading toward the cafeteria with my empty mug. “I’ve got some good news for you,” she said.
Chapter 23
Friday, June 15
I could have driven over there Tuesday night. Or Wednesday night. But I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t face the ugliness of it all.
But by Thursday night my curiosity was back in the driver’s seat. I watched the midnight repeat of Larry King on CNN-he was doing his umpteenth show on the Sc
ott Peterson murder trial-and then I watched some silly half-hour infomercial on a gizmo that peels hardboiled eggs perfectly every time. Then I loaded James into the backseat and headed for Hemphill College. It was a quarter to two in the morning. West Tuckman was absolutely empty. As if the rapture had sucked everybody up to heaven but James and me.
I reached the college in ten quick minutes. I pulled over in front of Mueller Hall. It sits right on the corner of West Tuckman and Balch Avenue. It’s where Greyhound used to have its campus bus stop. Hannawa was on the north-south route between Cleveland and Columbus. In addition to the main station downtown, the buses would make a curbside stop here for college students. That campus stop was eliminated years ago. These days even the poorest students have cars. But in the fifties the big noisy Greyhounds would pull over right where James and I were now standing.
“I suppose you’re wondering what we’re doing here at this ungodly hour,” I whispered to James. He was preoccupied with the glorious smells along the curb but I told him anyway. “According to the old bus schedule that the librarian at the historical society found for me, the overnight bus left Columbus at ten-fifteen. It made its way up Route 42, through Mansfield and Ashland and a dozen other towns. It reached the college at two, and then headed downtown before continuing on to Cleveland.”
I gave James’ leash a tug and we started up the sidewalk. “There’s no way to know now if Rollie got off the bus exactly at two. But it was spring. No snow or ice on the roads. So more than likely the bus arrived on time. And more than likely he was the only one who got off. It was Easter week. Nobody would be coming back to the college that week. Anyway, Rollie got off the bus with his suitcase and his big first place trophy.”
James found a nice forsythia bush to lift his leg on. I gave him all the time he needed. “We can’t say for certain that Rollie came this way. But even if he cut across the lawn between Mueller Hall and the field house, he still would have ended up on Hester Street. And Hester is the only sensible way to get to the apartment building on Liberty Street where Gwen lived her senior year. She’d talked her father into renting it for her, even though he’d already bought her that pink Buick.”
James finished. We walked on in the dark. The streetlights looked like dim, faraway flying saucers. “Rollie could have gone straight to his dorm on the other side of Tuckman, of course. But the reason he took the overnight bus was to see Gwen, wasn’t it? That’s what Bud Wetzel figured and I’m sure that’s right. He was anxious to show Gwen his trophy. Reap whatever romantic reward it might bring.”
We reached Hester Street and headed east. “It’s impossible to know which side of the street Rollie walked on. He could have crossed here and walked along the north side. Or he could have stayed on this side until he reached Liberty. But it doesn’t matter. If Rollie saw what I think he saw, then he could have seen it from either side of the street.”
We crossed Mortuary Street and then Church Street. The big, turn-of-the-century houses along Hester gave way to two blocks of Tudor-style apartment buildings. They had brown brick facades and green tile roofs. I stopped and gave James a biscuit, a reward for his patience. I pointed my chin at the building directly across the street from us. “See that building,” I said. “That’s where David Delarosa was killed. Early Thursday morning. Easter week 1957. Well, you can see what I’m thinking, can’t you, James?” I painted the picture for him in case he didn’t. “The street is dark and empty just like it is tonight. And Rollie is hurrying along on his way to Gwen’s. No doubt he’s exhausted. It’s been a rough couple of days and he’s had a long bus ride. But he’s also a man with not just one big trophy, but two. Never in his life did he think a classy girl like Gwen Moffitt would fall in love with him. But she had. She’d looked beyond his family’s embarrassing working-class status. She’d recognized his potential. Just that past fall she’d accepted the modest diamond ring he’d bought with his grocery packing money. So Rollie is a tired but happy young man that morning. Then he sees it. A pink Buick convertible. As bright as neon under the street light. Parked in front of that apartment building where all the athletes stay.”
In my hazy imagination I could see that pink Buick, too. I could see the anguish on Rollie’s face. I could see him walk slowly to the apartment building door. I could see his cloudy eyes and the debate that was raging behind them, his anger taking the affirmative, his better judgment vainly arguing the negative. I could see his trembling hand try the heavy latch. See him wince when the latch depressed with a quiet click. I could see him slip inside and stare up the steps. I could see his fingers tighten around the neck of his trophy, the bones of his knuckles pushing hard against the stretched white skin.
I gave James a tug and headed back down Hester Street. “Now remember,” I said, as if he’d seen all of the imaginary things I’d seen. “This is only a scenario. And you know what a scenario is, don’t you, James? It’s a theory unencumbered by evidence.” I looked back at the apartment building and in my imagination saw Gwen’s pink Buick make a wild U-turn and speed off into the fuzzy night. “And I don’t have any evidence, James. Not any real evidence. All I have is that old letter from David Delarosa and a whole truckload of cockamamie assumptions.”
***
Monday, June 18
I learned long ago not to give story ideas to reporters. They smile at you like you’re five years old, give you a sickly, “Oh, that’s a great idea!” and then they never do them. And if by some miracle they do write the story, they never do it right. So I just keep my mouth shut and let them come up with their own brilliant ideas.
That’s why Louise Lewendowski was more than a little surprised when I ambushed her in the cafeteria. “I’ve got the neatest idea for a feature,” I began. I’d made sure I had an extra cinnamon twist on my tray.
The kolachky lady yodeled at me. “You do?”
I slid the sweet roll across the table and made my pitch. “The other day I was visiting my old friend Gwen Moffitt-Stumpf and-”
Louise took the sweet roll and the bait. “You know Gwendolyn Moffitt-Stumpf?”
I pawed the air. “Oh, yes. We ran around with the same crowd in college. We still see each other every now and again.”
She was leaning forward on her elbows, nibbling on the cinnamon twist like a rabbit. “I hear her new house is a regular palace.”
“Nothing regular about it,” I said. “Which strangely enough leads me to the idea I had. Her husband, Rollie, you see, has the most incredible den. It’s just spectacular. And I was thinking, wouldn’t that make a great Sunday feature for Louise? The dens of Hannawa’s powerful men. You could do Rollie’s den, the mayor’s, some of the corporate presidents. Our readers would just eat it up, don’t you think?”
“That is such a great idea,” Louise said. I could tell by the size of her eyes that she really meant it.
And so by the time we headed back toward the newsroom the story idea was firmly planted. “I just hope they’ll go for it,” Louise worried. “You know how private men can be.”
I was brimming with good advice. “I wouldn’t go directly to the men themselves,” I suggested. “Go to their wives. They’ll see it as a great way to show off their husbands as well as their decorating talents. And their husbands won’t be able to say no.”
“You’re right-that’s the way to do it.”
“Of course you’ll want to get the men in the photos. Ties off. Feet up.”
“Of course.”
I pretended to have a sudden brilliant thought. “You know who you should get to shoot it? Chuck Weideman.”
Louise’s eyebrows disappeared under her bangs. “Weedy?”
“Absolutely. He’s been shooting the city’s bigwigs for a million years. He wouldn’t be the least bit intimidated by them or their wives. I bet he’d get some terrific candids. They might even start your story on Page One.”
Louise was not exactly known for her hard-hitting journalism. I’m sure she could count the number of Page O
ne stories she’d had on one finger. “You think he’d do it?”
“He just might,” I said.
We reached the newsroom. I felt like a skunk. A very happy skunk. “If you do go ahead with the story,” I said, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell Gwen it was my idea. I wouldn’t want her to think I was taking advantage of our friendship.”
Louise gave my shoulder an empathetic squeeze, like it was a fresh roll of toilet paper. “Of course, Maddy.”
An hour later I slipped back to the photographers’ studio, the windowless bunker where the paper’s photographers pretend to work. Weedy was busy playing solitaire on his computer.
Weedy has as much professional integrity as anyone else at The Herald-Union. He’d also sell his own grandmother into white slavery if it meant a Page One photo credit. And of course that’s why I put that bug in Louise’s ear about him.
I sat on his desk and spun his monitor around so he’d pay attention. “Weedy,” I said, “you know I’m not the kind of woman who wallows in frivolity.”
“Indeed, I do.”
“Or plays bullshit games.”
“If you say so.”
“So if I were to give you a tip-as murky as it sounded-you’d take my word for it?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
“Good. Because if Louise Lewendowski asks you to shoot a story for her, I would strongly recommend that you don’t try to pawn it off on somebody else.”
Weedy winced. “And why’s that?”
“Just happily accept the assignment and keep my name out of it. Okay?”
He studied my face. “Okay.”
I handed him the Post-it I had pinched between my thumb and index finger. “And should you by chance find yourself in a room with a mantel full of trophies, discreetly see if there’s one with this engraved on the front.”
He read the Post-it aloud: “First Place, State of Ohio Collegiate Debate Tournament, Columbus, 1956-57.” He put the tiny square of sticky paper in his shirt pocket. “Not to sound like the glory grubbing bastard I am, but what exactly might I gain from this despicable act of subterfuge?”
