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

overactive thyroid. I sensed he didn’t believe me. A doubt crawled into my mind: What if Eddie Robeleski had stopped by the store and bragged of his conquest? Why wouldn’t he want to blacken my name? I had left him high and dry, after all. Or what if Fadge really did have a ladder?

Okay, that was paranoia. Fadge was a true pal. Even if we did crack off-color jokes about sex, he’d never so much as made a pass at me, and he’d never inquired about my attachments. Still, a girl likes to give the impression of propriety, even if she’s only kidding herself. So what if Irene Metzger showed up later than I’d said? Would Fadge rather hear that I’d been breaking commandments with a twenty-one-year-old sailor on shore leave? What kind of floozy do I take me for?

“Who’s Irene Metzger?” he asked.

“Have you heard about that junior-high-school girl who disappeared ten days ago? Darleen Hicks.”

“Sure,” he said. “I read the papers. What’s she got to do with it?”

“This Irene Metzger is her mother.”

“So what did she want with you at one thirty in the morning? And on New Year’s Eve.”

“She wants me to help find her daughter. She says the police don’t care, and she read all my articles on the Jordan Shaw murder.”

“How proud you must be,” he smirked.

“Jealous. Anyhow, she thinks I can help find out what happened to Darleen.”

“So what does she think happened?”

“The only thing Irene Metzger’s sure about is that her daughter didn’t run off. And that her husband, the girl’s stepfather, couldn’t possibly be a suspect.”

“Isn’t it always the stepfather?” asked Fadge. “I read Lolita.”

“You read Lolita because you heard it was all about sex.”

“True,” he granted. “A little disappointing in that regard.”

“Serves you right.”

“So you’ve talked to him?” asked Fadge.

I took a sip of my drink. “Not yet. Irene Metzger wouldn’t hear of it. She insisted he knows nothing about Darleen’s disappearance.”

“What else did she tell you?”

“Not much,” I shrugged. “Boyfriend’s up at Fulton. Couldn’t have had anything to do with this, according to her. There are a couple of men who live nearby. Nothing to point to them yet, though.”

Fadge rose to get the second quart of beer from the icebox. He asked if I wanted another drink, but I’d had enough. When he returned, he sat down beside me on the sofa, placing his beer on the end table.

“Can I use this as a coaster?” he asked, showing me the unopened letter.

“No, I need that,” I said, reaching for the envelope.

He drew it back and squinted at the postmark. “This was mailed a month ago. You haven’t even opened it.” Then he read the return address: “‘Berg and Raphael Statuary.’”

I snatched it away and tucked it into the pocket of my robe. “There’s a coaster right in front of you.”

“Take it easy,” he said. “I didn’t mean any harm.”

Fadge sipped his beer pensively. A long silence settled over us. I was thinking about Darleen Hicks. I don’t know what was on Fadge’s mind.

“Her mother said she sometimes took taxis home when she missed the bus,” I offered finally. “And sometimes she took rides from strangers.”

“There’s your ending,” said Fadge. “Probably jumped into the wrong car. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Yeah, I thought of that, too. But her mother says she’s smart and resourceful. Never got into trouble before.”

“She tell you anything else?”

I thought some more. “Just that Darleen chews Black Jack gum. Yuck. And I know I’ve heard that recently, but I can’t remember where.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

I looked up at him, waiting for an explanation.

“You really don’t remember?” he asked. “A couple of weeks ago at the high-school basketball game. You were drunk and got sick in the girls’ room. You told me a girl chewing Black Jack gum held your hair while you puked into the garbage can.”

What a humiliating reminder. Though it stung, Fadge was right. Partly right.

“I wasn’t drunk,” I corrected. “And it was the toilet, not the garbage can. I had the flu.”

“And a pint of whiskey in your purse,” he said. “You told me so yourself.”

I waved him off. “The bottle was unopened. Intended for later. It was the flu.”

The memory returned instantly. I had drawn photo duty for the Friday-evening basketball game. Our sports-page photographer, Gabe Morrissey, was in Herkimer, covering local kegler Casimir Nowicki in a regional bowling tournament. Better him than me. My editor, Charlie Reese, assigned me to the basketball game over George Walsh, who’d just emerged from football season and was convinced that a basketball field goal counted for three points.

The New Holland Bucks, in the midst of their most promising season in a decade, were squaring off against the Gloversville Red Dragons in a Friday-evening tilt. Charlie wanted some action shots of Teddy Jurczyk— Teddy J., the straight-A freshman sensation who had turned around the Bucks’ season after a dismal start, leading them to seven straight wins.

Teddy had been marooned at the far end of the bench, collecting splinters, while the coach’s son, Dickie Mahoney, started at guard. Then Dickie came down with tonsillitis. A tall, wiry kid with a crew cut, palewhite skin, and an Adam’s apple that called to mind Ichabod Crane, Teddy Jurczyk looked more like the scarecrow man in a Charles Atlas ad than a basketball star. But he was a natural: one of those players who made opportunities for himself and his teammates; handled the ball like a wizard; and led the team in scoring, assists, and steals. While almost all the other players launched workmanlike, two-handed set shots, Teddy soared high and let fly grand, arcing jump shots. Deceptively fast, he glided over the polished hardwood in his tight satin shorts, dishing out assists and sinking baskets by the dozens.

Charlie had instructed me to come back with some good action photos and a pithy, post-game comment from the kid, who—I was sure— would be tongue-tied talking to a girl reporter.

At halftime, the score was tied at thirty-two. Teddy J. was leading the