Stone Cold Dead, James Ziskin [best ebook reader android .txt] 📗

had gone out of business, but this was still the best lock on the market. He lost me when he started talking about pins and cylinders. I just wanted something to keep people out.

“Of course a professional lock picker could open this,” he said. “But we don’t have any of those in New Holland.”

“I thought you said it was the best on the market.”

“Well, the best in the store, anyway,” he said. “But don’t worry. This will keep people out. And the bars on the window and the three surface bolts I put in make this door the safest in the city.”

It did appear to be secure. Burglar bars on the kitchen window, a new deadbolt, and three surface bolts anchoring the door to the head, the jamb, and the threshold.

“Thank you, Mr. Milchiore,” I said. “Just one more thing. Could you come back after dark and sleep on the landing?”

Looking both ways as I stepped off the porch, I could see no green Ford pickup truck anywhere on the street. I wasn’t worried about Louis Brossard’s red-and-white Chevy; Frank Olney had phoned me at ten thirty to say the assistant principal was safely in custody. He phoned again at eleven to tell me Joe Murray had showed up to spring him. Frank played his part well, saying he was going to hold Brossard no matter what Murray said, but in the end agreed to let him go after he gave and signed a statement.

In the meantime, Don Czerulniak had managed to secure a second search warrant for Brossard’s car. The judge was disinclined to grant it, but finally agreed, stipulating that this was the last search he would authorize. The State could not continue harassing the man without good cause.

I showed up at the sheriff’s office, just as Brossard was being released to his lawyer. He wouldn’t look me in the eye, and he said nothing. That’s when Don and Frank emerged from Frank’s office and broke the news to Joe Murray that they were going to have one more look at Brossard’s car.

“Go ahead,” said Murray, once he’d given the warrant the once over. “You’re spinning your wheels.”

Brossard seemed confident this was a fishing expedition. Still, he was eager to get the search over with. He’d been dragged out of the junior high by the sheriff in front of his colleagues, his boss, and dozens of students, and he was itching to return as soon as possible to flaunt his innocence.

Frank announced to everyone present that the car had already been towed to the jail by a wrecker and was sitting in the impound garage out back. Murray told him to get on with it. Brossard looked impatient.

I, on the other hand, was a bundle of nerves. It was one thing to come up with a clever guess, but quite another to prove it. And what if I was dead wrong? This could end up a major embarrassment for me and the sheriff. My empty stomach growled as we stepped outside and circled around to the garage.

Frank asked for the keys, and Brossard produced them. The sheriff handed them to Deputy Brunello, who unlocked the door. Frank invited Joe Murray to observe with him as a mechanic appeared with a tool box.

“Okay,” said the sheriff. “I want the front seat of the car removed.” He looked at Brossard then Joe Murray. “Very carefully.”

The mechanic stuck his head into the car, first from the driver’s side, then from the passenger’s side. Using a wrench, he unbolted the seat from the floor, and then two deputies helped him slide the bench seat out of the car.

“Lay it down on its back,” said Frank to the men. Then to Joe Murray. “Let’s have a look.”

My heart was galloping, and I thought I might faint from the anticipation and my hunger. This was the moment when I would know if Brossard had slipped the knot and would escape, or if he would pay for his crime.

“What is this circus?” asked Joe Murray as they reached the seat.

Frank stooped to look under the seat. His face betrayed no emotion. Joe Murray scanned the underside from the driver’s end to the passenger’s. He squinted. The first sign that my career might survive another day. Then he reached out to touch the fabric, but the sheriff stopped him.

“Don’t touch it,” he said. “That’s evidence.”

A tingle crawled up my neck. I closed my eyes and stifled a short gasp.

“What is it?” asked Murray.

“That,” said the sheriff, “is gum. Black Jack chewing gum, if I’m not mistaken.”

I actually lost my balance and stumbled. Stan Pulaski was standing nearby and caught me before I hit the ground. I was starving, my blood sugar low again, and I felt overwhelmed by emotions.

“So what’s that prove?” asked the lawyer. “Anyone could have put that there.”

“That’s true,” said Frank. “But whoever put it there left a perfect fingerprint right in the middle.”

Brossard collapsed to the ground. No one caught him.

There really wasn’t much Louis Brossard could say. His lawyer, Joe Murray, was also at a loss for words. His client had just signed a statement, swearing that Darleen Hicks had never been in his car. Not on the day she disappeared and never before then either. Now, with a perfectly preserved fingerprint squashed into a wad of Black Jack gum stuck to the underside of his car’s front seat, Brossard knew it was over. He didn’t try to deny it any longer. Frank told me the whole story after the assistant principal had confessed.

“The guilt was too much for him,” said the sheriff, sipping his coffee. “Once he realized that Darleen had stuck her gum under the car seat, he just wanted to get the whole thing off his chest.”

“What about the St. Winifred’s girl?” I asked.

“Yeah, he copped to that, too. Hudson police are sending a man up to take a confession from him.”

“So how did it all happen?”

“Pretty much like you thought,” said Frank. “Brossard