Heartstone

1

Elaine Murray was so excited that her hand shook and she smeared her lipstick. She rubbed her lips together to even the Tahitian Passion. She saw the spot the smear had made on the skin beneath her lower lip and used a tissue to wipe it away. She said, “Oh, damn,” when the spot resisted. Then she giggled. She liked to swear in the privacy of her room or when she was with close friends, but using swear words always caused a nervous giggle, because she knew her folks would never approve. They were both very square.

Her hair looked fine. It was natural auburn brown. Sometimes, when the sun was just right, Richie said it looked like it was on fire. She patted the edges with approval.

Elaine stood up and walked over to a full-length mirror that hung on her closet door. She struck a pose and smiled. Her body was trim and athletic. Her stomach was very flat from exercise and her hips were wide and curvy. When she looked at her breasts, she frowned a little. They were beautifully shaped, but small. She knew that men liked large breasts and she hoped that Richie would not be disappointed. She had thought about wearing falsies, but rejected the idea. She was sure that tonight would be the night and she did not want to be a phony. She wanted Richie to know exactly what he was going to get. Besides, Richie was a gentleman and he would never tell that she was smaller than she usually appeared. That would be their secret. One of the things that they would share-maybe forever.

Forever! Elaine closed her eyes and lay back on the bed. She tried to imagine Richie and her married. Of course, that wouldn’t happen for some time. After all, they weren’t even going steady…yet. But after tonight…

Elaine didn’t want to think about it. Maybe she was guessing wrong and he would not ask her. After all, they had only been dating seriously for a month. A month. It seemed like forever. She could not remember when she had been so happy. Richie Walters. It seemed like a dream come true.

Elaine had had a crush on Richie Walters since her sophomore year, but he had not even noticed her until this summer when they had both worked at the Empire Department Store. At first he had just talked with her at breaks or when he passed through her department. Her father, Dr. Harold Murray, knew the Empire’s store manager and he had gotten her the job for the summer. Richie had gotten his job the same way. They had joked about being rich and having pull. Elaine was sure, though, that Richie could have gotten any job he wanted on his own. He was so handsome. She loved his curly blond hair and blue eyes. His nose was so perfect. And he was so smart, so deep. Richie knew all about things. He had worked on President Kennedy’s campaign this fall and had actually met the President when he had campaigned in Portsmouth. She knew Richie had applied to a lot of colleges and was so smart that he could probably go where he wanted, but she hoped that he would choose State, where she was hoping to go. It would be hard to go steady and be separated. She knew that she would remain faithful, but…There she went again. He hasn’t even asked you, dope, she thought. Then, again, she was sure, positive, he would. Wendy Blair was going with Frank Coppella and Frank played football with Richie and was his best friend and he had told Wendy that Richie had been thinking about it and Richie had been acting funny this week.

Elaine pulled herself up and sat down again in front of her dressing table. She applied eyeliner and mascara and turned her head back and forth. She thought that she was pretty. Not beautiful like Alice Fay, the queen of last year’s prom, but pretty. And there were plenty of boys who thought so, too. She was a cheerleader and had been a princess in Alice’s court, so she was no wallflower.

Elaine slipped on a pair of white panties and hooked up her bra. Then she put on tan toreador slacks and a white blouse. She pulled a red and black ski sweater over the blouse. It had been a funny winter, she mused. Here it was, just after Thanksgiving, and it was not all that cold. That was fine with Elaine. She never did like the cold weather.

Elaine doublechecked her blouse and noticed that one of the buttons was undone. As she rebuttoned it she felt a thrill of excitement. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine Richie’s strong fingers unbuttoning the blouse, one button at a time. Very slowly and deliberately. Her mouth was suddenly dry and her stomach tight. Her nipples were growing taut beneath her bra and the friction between them and the cloth was not unpleasant.

Richie was a gentleman in every way, but he had the urges that all men had. Elaine had talked to her mother about sex and men. Her mother had told her to hold on to her virginity, because she would lose a man’s respect if she was too free. She had followed her mother’s advice even though it had been hard at times. Like when she was in Richie’s arms and he was caressing her breasts through her blouse. When he did that she just wanted to let him do it like he asked. But she was glad she had not given in yet. A woman’s body was a gift for the man she married. Her present to him. It would be so much better if they were married. And what her mother had said about respect was true. Look at the way the boys talked about Eleanor Strom behind her back and everyone knew how far you could get with her. But, tonight, she had made up her mind. Tonight, if he asked her to go steady, she would let him touch her breasts. It would only be fair and she would want him to have a reason to stay with her.

She looked at the clock. Holy cow, it was after eight and he would be here any minute. She slipped on a pair of tennis sneakers and looked at herself once more. Downstairs the doorbell was ringing.

Bobby Coolidge was standing in front of the mirror in the men’s room of Bob’s Hamburger Heaven, admiring himself. With great precision he raised the black plastic comb and drew it through his thick, greasy jet black hair. First, he swept the hair on the sides straight back. The hair on both sides of his head resembled wings and there was a little “tail” where the hair on each side joined behind his head. Bobby surveyed his work. A perfect duck’s ass if he had to say so himself. He twirled the curl that he had placed in the center of his forehead one more time. Presley never did it better, he thought.

“Lend me the comb when you’re through, greaseball,” his brother Billy said as he zipped the fly on his tight-fitting jeans.

“Just one second, man,” Bobby said. There had been a hair out of place on the left side of his head. He stepped back from the mirror and ran the comb through again. When he was satisfied, he rinsed off the comb and handed it to Billy.

Billy stepped in front of the mirror and Bobby leaned against the bathroom wall, taking a cigarette out of the pack he kept in one of the zippered pockets of his black leather jacket.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

“What I don’t want to do is stick around this joint anymore tonight. That pussy Delores is giving me a pain.”

“The waitress with the pimples?”

Bobby nodded and Billy saw him in the mirror.

“The word’s out on her, Bobby. Harry Capri says she toots on the root.”

“Well, I got more class than Harry Capri. Do you ever see the pigs he goes out with?”

“Listen, Capri says she gives a hum job to the tune of Yankee Doodle and makes you come on the last note.”

“You’re full of shit.”

Billy shrugged.

“Would I lie to my own brother?”

“If she’s so hot, how come you ain’t made a play for her?”

“Too ugly. I save the ugly ones for you.”

Bobby laughed. He was lucky to have a brother who was also a good friend. The Coolidge brothers stuck together. They fought together. They screwed together. He smiled, took a drag on his cigarette and tried to picture Delores giving him a blow job. Nah, he couldn’t do it. Shit, he’d never be that horny.

Billy straightened up and handed Bobby his comb.

“You still didn’t answer me.”

“About what?”

“What to do.”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “We could crash Alice Fay’s party.”

“She having a party?” Bobby asked with interest.

“That’s what Rog says. We can ask him when we get back to the table.”

Billy pushed open the bathroom door and they wound their way through the usual tables of squares and teeny-boppers to their table in the far corner of the restaurant. Roger Hessey and Esther Freemont were eating their hamburgers and Esther, as usual, was finishing an extra shake. Bobby absentmindedly scratched his crotch when he looked at Esther. She had big tits, and Bobby liked big tits, and she wasn’t bad looking, either. All the same, she fucked anything that walked and Bobby’s personal opinion was that a good-looking guy like Hessey could do a lot better for himself. Also, she was a pain. She had a crush on Bobby and was always making cow eyes at him and giving him the big come-on. Bobby knew he could fuck her if he wanted, but he knew a broad as dumb as Esther wouldn’t keep his interest long and he couldn’t hack the big scene he knew would happen when he told her to get lost. He was also a little nervous, because he knew that Esther had stabbed a guy at Stuyvesant High who had tried something funny when she wasn’t in the mood and he didn’t want any of that scene. Nah, all in all, it was best to leave Esther alone. Now Alice Fay or Elaine Murray-there was class. Too bad they were such stuck-up bitches. He’d sure like to pop one of them.

“Rog, didn’t you tell me that Alice Fay was having a party tonight?” Billy asked.

“Yeah. Why?”

“I don’t know. I thought maybe Bobby and me would go.”

“You ain’t invited,” Roger said.

“I know that, asshole. That has nothing to do with whether we go or not.”

Roger shook his head.

“That’s just gonna mean trouble.”

Bobby grinned.

“You ain’t afraid of a little trouble, are you?”

“Shit no,” Roger said uneasily. “I just ain’t in the mood for it tonight.”

“Who says there has to be trouble?” Billy asked. “All I was thinkin’ of doing was going to a party. I ain’t gonna start any trouble.”

“One of those jocks will.”

“Jocks are basically candyasses, right, Bob?”

Bobby nodded in agreement.

“Well count me out,” Roger said.

“Oh, Rog, can’t we go? I never saw Alice Fay’s house,” Esther said.

“What do you want to see her house for. It’s just another spoiled rich kid’s house.”

“I know, but I’d like to. Couldn’t we, please?”

“I told you, I ain’t going to no fucking party where I ain’t been invited. Alice Fay has got her nose stuck up her ass anyway.”

“I know something I’d like to stick up her ass,” Billy said.

“You watch your mouth,” Esther said angrily. Billy just grinned.

“Look,” Billy said, “I’m crashing. Who’s gonna come with me?”

“Count me in,” Bobby said.

“I’m just going home,” Roger said.

“Can I come with you guys?” Esther pleaded.

Bobby looked at Billy. It would be a real pain to have to take Esther along, but, if they said yes, Roger would probably come so as not to lose face.

“Sure, Esther, come on.”

Roger looked at his plate.

“Ah, if you’re going, I’m coming.”

“Good. I knew you weren’t chicken.”

“Who’s chicken?” Roger bristled.

Bobby and Billy laughed.

“No one is chicken, man. We were just riding you.”

“Yeah, Rog. Everyone knows you’re a good man in a fight.”

“Almost as good as this,” Billy said and Bobby heard the familiar click as the long steel of Billy’s switchblade snapped out under the table. “The Old Equalizer,” Billy liked to call it and it had sure come in handy in the past. Bobby smiled as he remembered the time they had gone to the movies and the two niggers had sat down behind them and made all that noise. Bobby hated niggers. Bobby and Billy were Cobras and from time to time the Cobras would ride over to the nigger section of town and beat the shit out of one or two. But that time at the movies there had just been the two of them and these two noisy jig-aboos and Billy had asked them real polite to shut up, but they started with this wiseass jive and just kept making more noise and talking cool about white boys and one nigger leaned down next to Billy’s ear and whispered real low about how he was going to wait till the show was over and follow Billy outside and stomp him good. Bobby had started to turn, but he had felt Billy’s hand on his knee and had heard the sound of the blade being withdrawn from Billy’s pocket. The nigger’s lips were practically touching Billy’s ear and his nose was leaning down over Billy’s left shoulder. The nigger never saw the knife in the dark until it was too late. Billy brought it up real slow with his right hand and pressed the button. The tip of the blade had shot out just right, poking the tiniest hole in the tip of the nigger’s nose. The nigger had screamed in pain. Blood was pouring out of his nostril and Billy was up on his seat screaming. Those coons sure had run fast. Billy always ended the story by saying that it was the only time he ever saw a nigger turn white.

Esther was finishing her shake and Billy and Roger went over to the cashier and paid the bill. Bobby knew where Alice lived and Roger did not, so they decided that Roger and Esther would follow Bobby and Billy. Bobby felt good. He knew that something would happen tonight. He had that tingly feeling in his stomach that he would get when he was nervous, but cool. Like before a rumble or before he would start to put the make on some chick. The clock in the hamburger joint read eight fifty-five.

Richie Walters parked his ’55 Mercury next to the curb in front of Elaine Murray’s house. Before he got out, he checked his face in the rear view mirror. He had taken care of a pimple on the left side of his chin with Clearasil and he wanted to make sure that he had done a good job. The pimple was almost invisible under the flesh-colored cover-up. Richie smiled. He looked good. He had made a special effort to look good, because tonight was going to be a special night.

It was chilly out and Richie tucked his hands into the pockets of his letter jacket as he headed for the house. He felt funny: half elated, half depressed. He had never asked a girl to go steady before and the idea frightened him a little. For all his good looks and popularity, he was awkward with girls. He always felt that he was saying or doing the wrong thing when he was with them. Then he had started dating Elaine and everything had changed. He felt at ease with her. She thought his jokes were funny and his views incisive. And she responded to him sexually-to a point. That was the only problem they had. When he was kissing her or holding her, he lost control. Elaine would let him go so far and then stop. He knew she trusted him, because she let him go as far as she did, but he always left her with a mixture of fulfillment and frustration.

Going steady was a big step to take. He had thought about it for some time before deciding to ask Elaine. The biggest problem would arise next September. Richie was crazy about Elaine, but he knew that she was not as smart as he was. She had applied to State and a few other local colleges, whereas he had applied to mostly Ivy League and other eastern schools. State was his last choice and he did not really want to go there.

Richie did not think that he would have much trouble getting into a top school. He had excellent grades and he had letters in three sports, plus an honorable mention All-State as a halfback his junior year. Coach thought he would make first team this year and a few schools had already offered him athletic scholarships.

Richie had turned the athletic scholarships down. He wanted to play sports in college, but he was more interested in his education. He had listened hard to what John Kennedy had said during his campaign for the Presidency. Kennedy had talked a lot about public service and the disadvantaged. Richie felt that he had had all the breaks and he had decided that he wanted to help those who had not. He was not sure if he wanted to be a doctor or go into law or perhaps science. He was certain, though, that he wanted to work with, and help, people.

Richie rang the doorbell. He took a look at his high school ring. It would not be on his finger after tonight. That was, if Elaine accepted. For a second he felt a surge of fear. What if she rejected him? No, she wouldn’t. He was sure that she felt for him the same way that he felt for her.

Richie heard footsteps approaching from inside. He took a quick look at the sky. It was a beautiful clear night. There had been some rain earlier in the day, but the sky was unclouded and star-sprinkled now. He had certainly picked a romantic evening to ask Elaine to be his girl. He had planned how he would do it. First he would take her to the movies. Alice Fay had invited them to a party, but he felt that the movies would be more intimate.

After the movies, they would cruise downtown. Richie’s car was out of character for a boy who was basically introverted; but he loved it. He had customized it himself and it was the talk of the school. No one could touch it in a drag race.

Afterward, they would have something to eat. Or maybe they wouldn’t. Then he would drive her to Lookout Park and ask her to go steady.

The door opened and Mrs. Murray invited him in. He liked Mrs. Murray. She was always very cheerful. He told her how nice she looked and she thanked him and called upstairs for Elaine.

Myron Krauss was in town to sell hardware, but the market was lousy, he told everyone at the bar who would listen. Myron was forty-eight, fat and balding. He lived in Minneapolis with his wife and three children. After twenty-five years of marriage he found them all boring.

Myron was pretty boring himself. Maybe that was why no one was listening to him. After a while Myron even bored himself, so he decided to try another bar. He stumbled when he pushed himself off the red leather bar stool. He had to grab for support. “I’m a bit high,” he thought. He knew he wasn’t drunk, though. Myron was proud of the fact that he could hold his liquor.

When Myron lurched out into the cold night air, two young men in black leather jackets and tight blue jeans followed him. Both men had their hair combed back at the sides and forward in the center, until it curled in the middle of their foreheads, like Elvis Presley’s. The hair had been heavily greased and what little light there was in the bar reflected off it.

The wind gusted as the two men exited the bar. They pulled on leather gloves and followed after Myron at a fast pace. There was an alley a little bit ahead of the drunken salesman. The two men timed their actions perfectly. They reached Myron just as he reached the alley.

Ralph Pasante slammed both hands against Myron’s shoulder and Myron stumbled into the alley. Myron was too drunk to realize what was happening. His face registered puzzlement instead of fear. Willie Heartstone knew that his prey would react just this way from past experience. He hit the little man in his solar plexus. Myron grunted. He could not breathe. He thought he might die from lack of air and he opened his mouth wide and wheezed. Willie thought Myron looked like a fish. He let him wiggle around for a second before driving his knuckles into Myron’s nose as hard as he could. Willie felt bone crack and crumble and he saw blood gush out. That felt good. Ralph kicked Myron in the groin. Myron fell to his knees and his head bounced off the alley floor when it hit. Ralph stomped him once for fun. Then they went through the unconscious man’s pockets. When they had his wallet, watch, rings and small change, they ran out of the far end of the alley. Their car was four blocks away.

After they had driven a few blocks, they pulled over on a side street and Willie counted the money.

“How much?”

“A hundred and sixty bucks and change,” Willie said in a matter-of-fact tone. The muggings did not excite him like they used to, unless the victim put up a fight. Then he enjoyed it. He liked beating someone with spirit. It made him feel masterful. This punk tonight was a zero. Willie knew that he would not fight when he saw him flashing his roll at the bar.

“What do you want to do now?” Ralph asked.

Willie ran his tongue across his lips. The two beers he had had in the bar had made him loose and easy. While sitting and waiting for the fat man to leave, he had daydreamed about a woman: his dream woman. The one who came to him at night when he was alone. She was blond and long-legged and she always cowered on the floor before him. Sometimes he would beat her. Sometimes he would please her.

“I don’t know,” Willie answered casually. “We could cruise downtown. It’s almost ten-thirty. The movies’ll be letting out.”

Ralph smiled. He knew what Willie was thinking. Friday night movies meant unattached high school snatch. Willie headed for downtown Portsmouth.

Bobby Coolidge stopped the car in the yard of Alice Fay’s house. Alice lived in a modern, three-story stone house which was located on several acres of Portsmouth’s wealthiest suburb. Her folks were in Hawaii on vacation, so Alice had the house to herself. Bobby and Billy checked their hair in the car mirror. Bobby could hear the sound of a rock band vibrating the night air and he could see the silhouettes of people talking and dancing inside the house. He told Billy to hurry up and Billy zipped up his jacket.

Roger’s car pulled up behind them and they walked up to the porch. Bobby knew that the four of them would not be welcome, but he didn’t give a shit. Most of the people at the party would be candyasses. Jocks, brains. In general, squares. He knew the squares felt uneasy in his presence. He enjoyed that.

Bobby pounded on the front door and a boy in a white shirt and chinos opened it. When the boy saw who had knocked, he looked nervous. The boy was Arnie Klaus, a jock. Arnie looked strong, but, like most jocks, he was chicken when it came to a fight. A year ago, when Arnie was a freshman, Billy had made him cough up a quarter for protection. Billy had outgrown that phase, but Arnie still avoided both Coolidges.

“Hi, Arnie,” Billy said politely. “Good party?”

“Yeah, Bob,” Arnie answered, a little too enthusiastically.

The four of them drifted into a corner of the room. They had noticed the buzz that had accompanied their entrance. It gave Bobby and Billy satisfaction.

The living room was big. Alice’s family had plenty of dough. Everyone looked freshly scrubbed and fashionably casual. Bobby hated them. He tried not to brood on it, but he felt that it was so unfair that these snotnose punks should have it all, while he and Billy had to work so hard for everything they had ever gotten. It had been like that ever since their father had died. Both of them holding down jobs after school. Living poor. Watching their mother drink herself away.

Billy scanned the room. He stopped when he saw Alice Fay and Tommy Cooper standing near the punch bowl. Alice was going steady with Tommy. Tommy had his arm around her shoulder as if he owned her. Billy felt a mixture of anger and despair. It was not right that he should have no chance with a girl like Alice. She was tall and slender with large breasts. Her eyes sparkled and her teeth were perfect. She was perfection. At night, Billy fantasized about her. But it was just a dream and he knew that it could never come true. Alice and her friends were rich. They would graduate high school and go on to college. Bobby and Billy were nothings in their eyes. Their futures were obscure and gray.

Tommy Cooper told a joke and Alice laughed. Billy hated Cooper. He was a jock and a brain. He was tall. His black hair was cropped in a crew cut and his skin seemed tanned even in winter. He wore his letter sweater proudly over a plaid shirt and tan chinos. He looked relaxed and at ease in white socks and loafers.

Bobby noticed the way his brother was looking at Alice. Billy had never told him, but he knew about Billy’s crush on her.

“That Alice is all right,” Bobby said.

“She’s okay.”

“I’d sure like to get me some of that, hey, Rog?”

Roger leered.

“Cut that out,” Esther said. “We shouldn’t even be here, so don’t cause any trouble.”

Arnie had walked over to Tommy and Alice while they had been talking. Arnie said something and motioned in their direction. Cooper turned toward them and scowled.

“I don’t like that prick,” Billy said.

“Me neither,” said Bobby.

“You want to have some fun?”

“Hey, I told you I didn’t want no trouble,” Roger said uneasily. “Besides, we’re outnumbered.”

“I didn’t say anything about trouble, Roger,” Billy said, grinning. “I said ‘fun.’”

“Billy, I know you. Look, Esther, I don’t feel right being here. I’m going home.”

Esther looked at Roger and at Billy and Bobby. Roger was her boyfriend, but he was acting like a coward.

“Let’s stay, Roger. Please.”

“I told you no. Now come on.”

“You never want to have fun. I want to stay.”

“Well I don’t.”

Roger started for the door. Esther went after him. They were talking in angry undertones as they went out the door. Five minutes later Esther came back in. She was crying. “Oh, shit,” Bobby thought. Now they were stuck with Esther for the evening. Roger and Esther were always having fights. They usually ended with Roger slapping her around and Esther crying.

“That bastard left me,” Esther whimpered.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get you home,” Bobby said. He was watching Cooper carefully. Cooper had gone over to a couple of the bigger boys in the room and they were talking in the corner.

“I think I’ll get some punch,” Billy said.

Bobby followed his brother over to the refreshment table. His brother filled a glass of punch and munched some potato chips. The people at the table ignored them. There were a few comments made in guarded tones.

Bobby noticed Cooper approaching. He was having second thoughts about what they were doing. He had been in a fighting mood all day, but now that it looked like they were going to get into it, he didn’t like the odds.

“Hi, Alice,” Billy said.

“Hello, Billy,” Alice answered stiffly.

“Nice party.”

Alice forced a smile and walked off. Tommy Cooper talked to her in low tones. There were four guys behind him. Bobby knew two of them from school. He did not know the other two. They looked tough.

Alice looked upset. Bobby heard her say something about “no trouble” and he saw Tommy and the others push past her and head in their direction.

“Alice said she didn’t invite you, Coolidge.”

Billy was refilling his punch glass and he purposely kept his back to Cooper.

“I guess she didn’t. We just heard that there was a party and decided to drop by.”

“Well, why don’t you just drop out.”

Billy turned. He was smiling. Bobby had seen that smile before and he moved his body sideways so as to make himself tough to hit.

“Why don’t you just fuck off?”

Cooper looked uncertain of his next move. The noise in the room had stopped.

“Now look here…” Cooper started to say. One of the two boys that Bobby did not know had moved beside Tommy. He was Billy and Bobby’s size, about six two, and he looked lean and muscular. His hair was crew cut and he resembled Cooper. The other stranger was taller than the Coolidges, but he was fat and looked out of shape.

“Let’s cut the talk,” the boy who looked like Tommy said. “I’ve heard enough from this little fart. Now you two get out or I’ll kick your ass out.”

“You better listen, Billy. This is my brother. He’s on leave from the service.”

Billy’s boot caught Tommy’s brother in the groin. As he folded, Bobby hit him in the temple with a right. The boys standing with Tommy were too shocked to move. Billy had counted on this and he smashed the punch glass into Tommy Cooper’s face and hit him in the stomach.

The fat boy was the first to react. He was deceptively fast and he put his bulk behind a right that exploded against Billy’s head, knocking him backward across the refreshment table. Bobby hit the fat man, but the punch had no effect and two other boys had him down before he could move. They were not hitting him. They were just holding him.

“He’s got a knife,” someone screamed. Bobby could not see much from the floor. The fat boy moved into his line of vision and he heard his brother yell,

“Come on, motherfucker, and I’ll cut you wide open.”

“Stop this,” Alice Fay was yelling.

“Let my brother go and we’ll leave this shithole.”

“Let him up,” Alice said and the two boys that were holding Bobby rolled off.

Billy was standing with his back to the table with the knife in his hand. The fat boy had a broken Coke bottle.

“Let’s get out of here,” Bobby said. The crowd moved away from the door and they edged out. Esther was already on the porch. She looked terrified.

People were filing onto the porch as they moved toward their car. Esther climbed in back and Billy drove off. Billy’s face was tight. Bobby could see a pulse throbbing in Billy’s temple.

“The bastards,” Billy said in a taut, clipped voice. “Just once I want to be treated like a human being by those cocksucking sons of bitches.”

“You were looking for it…” Esther started.

Billy jammed on the brakes and whirled in his seat. He held a rigid finger in front of Esther’s startled eyes.

“Just shut your mouth or I’ll ram a fist down it. You’d love to be one of those goody goodies, wouldn’t you? Well, they’re nothing but a bunch of leeches, living off of daddy’s money. Not one of them is worth the shit off of my asshole. And someday…”

His voice trailed off into the darkness. The illuminated hands of the dashboard clock read ten twenty-five.

Elaine Murray checked her hair and lipstick one final time and left the ladies’ room of the Paramount Theater. She had been grateful for the excuse to leave Richie for a few moments. She needed the time to catch her breath. She felt as if she was floating and giddy.

Elaine could hardly remember the movie. All she could remember was Richie’s strong arms around her and the passion of his kisses. They had gone to the last row of the balcony and the movie had barely started when she felt him slide his arm behind her shoulders.

The movie was Midnight Lace with Doris Day and Rex Harrison. It was a thriller and it took place in London. It got tense and she moved as close to Richie as she could. Then he had been kissing her and she had kissed back, letting him slip his hand inside her sweater.

Their tongues had touched and she could feel his fingers caressing her nipples through her bra. She had lost control.

It was near the end of the movie when he had whispered that he loved her. She had almost cried. Then the lights had come on. She told him that she wanted to freshen up. Inside the ladies’ room, she sat in a stall until she was relaxed enough to go out again.

Richie was waiting in the lobby. He felt happy and unsure of what to say now that he had said what was in his heart. Elaine took his hand and they walked out of the theater. The sidewalks were crowded with Friday-night strollers and the streets were jammed with souped-up cars that raced their engines and honked at each other. Downtown Portsmouth was the place to be seen on Friday and Saturday nights.

Richie and Elaine walked slowly despite the chill in the air. A group of boys were standing beside Richie’s car. Elaine recognized Matt Shaw and Rudy Pegovich. They said hello and talked for a bit. Elaine wished they would leave. Soon Richie said so long and opened her door. She felt proud to sit in Richie’s car. It was the talk of the school. She didn’t know much about cars, but she knew that the engine was powerful and that other cars could not beat it. He had dragged with her in the car several times and she had always been thrilled by the car’s speed and Richie’s daring.

As the car pulled into traffic, she snuggled up against him.

“Do you want something to eat?” he asked.

“I’m not hungry,” she replied dreamily.

Richie was stimulated by the softness of her voice. He reached his right hand around her shoulder and drove with his left. He kissed her when they stopped for the light.

“Do you want to drive up to Lookout Park?” he asked, knowing what her answer would be.

She did not say anything. Instead, she snuggled closer. Richie turned off the main downtown drag and headed for Monroe Boulevard. Monroe led out of the city to a large wooded area in the hills that was called Lookout Park by the City Park Commission and Lovers’ Lane by everyone else. The park was large and sprawling, with several secluded areas that were used for picnics in the daytime and making out at night.

“It’s so beautiful tonight, Richie,” she said.

He wanted to tell her that he thought she was beautiful, but he could not. As intimate as they had been, he still felt tongue-tied. He had had so little experience with girls and he was afraid of saying the wrong thing or saying the right thing in a way that would sound phony. Gasping out “I love you” in the theater had taken an effort equal to anything he had ever put out on the football field. When she had accepted his profession of love without rebuke, he had felt like shouting through the theater.

He tightened his arm around her for a second and she melted against him, giving him a peck on the cheek. He shifted slightly and felt the contraceptive pushing against his buttocks from its position in his wallet. He had purchased a package of Trojans from a smirking pharmacist at a shopping center near his house. He had never done that before and it had been a nerve-wracking experience.

When he thought about the contraceptives, he wondered why he even bothered. Elaine was too nice a girl to go all the way. But what if she did. He wanted to do it with her so much that his body ached each time they made out. So far she had kept him off with affectionate but firm nos. But that was before they were going steady. Would that change now?

Richie was half afraid of what he would do if it did. He had only been with one other girl. There was a party after they had won the Division Championship last year. One of the girls had gotten drunk and he and three other boys had had sex with her. He had not done so well, coming almost as soon as he touched her. It had not been what he had expected. He was sure that sex would be different with someone he loved.

Monroe Boulevard was deserted this time of night. Richie and Elaine did not notice the car that pulled alongside at the traffic light until it raced its engine. There were two men in the front seat and a girl in the back. Elaine could not see their faces clearly. When the light changed, the car squealed its tires and raced ahead. Richie smiled at Elaine. He was grateful for the distraction. The car had stopped at the next light even though it was green. Richie pulled alongside and the light turned red.

Elaine squeezed the muscle of Richie’s right arm and then moved over to give him room. She adored him when he was like this. He sat straight-backed, leaning slightly forward from the waist. His right hand gripped the shift lightly. His face was a picture of intense concentration.

The light changed. Both cars seemed to leap forward. Tires squealed. They floated side by side. Neither appeared to be moving. Then the Mercury pulled ever so slightly ahead.

The stretch of Monroe Boulevard ahead of them was flat and had no traffic lights for several blocks. The other car lost more ground and then sped up, pulling even. Richie pushed the accelerator toward the floor. They were gaining. And then the other car was veering into them. There was a grinding of metal and the Mercury lurched sideways.

Elaine screamed and Richie fought for control.

“The bastards,” Richie swore when they had evened out.

“What happened?”

“That son of a bitch rammed us. I’ll show him who he’s playing with.”

The other car had gained considerable ground, but it seemed to have slowed, as if daring Richie to catch it. Elaine had never seen Richie so grim.

“Don’t chase them, Richie. Let them go. Please.”

“No one does that to me, Elaine.”

The Mercury was pulling even again and as it drew alongside the other car swerved into their lane. Richie reacted in time, pulling to the side, then cutting back into the other lane. Elaine screamed and there was the sound of metal grinding again. This time the other car went into a skid. It hit a wet patch of pavement and spun sideways. The driver fought for control and the car fishtailed toward the sidewalk. Elaine watched open-mouthed through the rear window as the car bounced off a telephone pole and then screeched to a stop, facing the way it had come. Richie gave the Mercury more gas to widen the distance between the two cars. Elaine could see a figure in tight jeans and a black leather jacket getting shakily out of the car.

Richie started to laugh and she laughed too. It was a release of tension and it sounded hysterical for a moment.

“Did you see that guy fishtail?” Richie asked.

She kissed him for an answer. Her heart swelled with pride at being Richie’s girl.

They rode through the hills until they found a place to park. There was a dirt side road off one of the paved roads that twisted through the park. The dirt road ended in a meadow surrounded by evergreens. Richie pulled the car to the far end of the field. He switched off the lights, but left the heater on. With the headlights off, the only illumination was the pale glow of starlight.

Elaine had taken her coat off when the car had heated up and she had put it on the back seat. Richie looked at her and she did not trust herself to speak. Her heart was thumping and Richie looked as nervous as she felt.

“Elaine, I asked you out for a special reason, tonight,” he said, the way he had practiced it. They were facing each other and he had placed his hand over hers. The sound of his own voice sounded strange and the words he was saying sounded terribly stilted.

“Elaine, do you…do you want to go steady?”

There! He had said it. Elaine thought that her heart would burst. She could not speak. Instead, she threw her arms around him and began to cry. He kissed her and she opened her mouth. Their tongues met.

When they parted, Richie slipped the ring off and gave it to her. She held it and turned it in her hand. He stroked her cheek with his hand and drew her to him. This time his kisses were gentle. She felt herself sliding down on the front seat and she could feel his hand move under her sweater and cup her breast. She arched her back and stroked his neck and ear.

He was unbuttoning her blouse and she did not resist as she always had before. Richie was breathing hard. He managed the buttons without fumbling. She was completely relaxed, accepting him.

He had the blouse undone now and he was caressing her nipple through the bra. His hand worked around her back and she moved slightly to assist him. He was elated and she was afraid and calm at the same time. No man had ever touched her naked breast before. She was terrified of the effect that his strong hands might have on her, yet she longed for him to cup and stroke her. To love her.

He was murmuring his love for her. Kissing her earlobes with the tip of his tongue. Her hand wandered down his leg, terrified of what she knew she would find there. He moved his weight and she touched it suddenly through his pants. It was large and hard. Her fingers pressed it gingerly, drawing back like startled fawns.

The bra was unhooked and she was aware of his fingers exploring the hard tip of her nipple. She was flooded by strange emotions. His penis was so hard and big. If she let him put it inside her, would she feel rending pain? She did not care. She wanted him inside her. She wanted to be driven insane by him, like the women in the books. She felt him loosening her pants.

“No,” she said instinctively, pressing her hand on his.

“I love you,” he said and she felt his fingers entwine with hers. His lips were kissing the hand that had tried to restrain him. His hand was on her stomach and below. Questing. Caressing her vagina through her panties. She was moaning now. Wanting it. Willing to do anything for him.

“What was that?”

He was sitting bolt upright, staring through the rear window. Her eyes snapped open, startled.

“There’s someone out there,” he whispered.

She was frightened. From her position on the car seat she could only see the car roof. She heard Richie opening the car door and felt a blast of cold air.

“Richie, don’t leave me,” she whispered.

“I’ll be right back.”

The door closed quietly. Her clothes were in disarray. There were tires crunching dirt and gravel nearby. She could hear it now. There was another car door opening and footsteps coming toward the car.

She fumbled with her pants. Richie was outside the car. The interior light was on, because the door had not shut completely. She was in a panic. She could not have anyone see her like this. She struggled with her bra, still lying down so that she would not be seen.

There were voices shouting angrily. One of them was Richie’s. Her bra was fastened and she tried to button her blouse. A button popped and she cursed. Someone was grunting. No. More than one person. She struggled with the buttons. They would not fit. She wanted to see, but she could not sit up looking like this. Anyone would know what…The car shook with the impact and she could see Richie’s back blocking the rear side window. Then it was gone, lunging into the darkness. She sat up. The interior light made it difficult to see into the dark. She reached for the door to close it and Richie screamed. She froze and Richie screamed again. There was the sound of men grunting from exertion and someone swearing. She slammed the door tight. Richie was kneeling and there were two men in black leather jackets standing over him. One man kept raising and lowering his arm and Richie kept screaming.

She had to get out. She had to get away. She looked for the keys, but they were not in the ignition. Someone was yelling in the dark. Someone was rushing toward the car. She turned to her left and screamed. There was a face pressing against the window. Fists pounding on the door. The glass on the other side shattered and she whirled around. An arm clothed in black leather was groping like some obscene spider for the door handle. She curled in a fetal position against the driver’s door. She gripped the steering wheel and stared wide-eyed.

“Please. No, please,” she whimpered.

The passenger door swung open.

2

It was 9:30, Saturday, November 26, 1960, and Portsmouth police officer Marvin Sokol was almost halfway through his shift. Marvin was in a funny mood. He was feeling good because he had just won five bucks from his partner, Tom McCarthy, who had had the temerity to bet against Navy.

Sokol was an old Navy man. He had been in for four years during the Second World War. He always bet on Navy and this afternoon his boys had walloped Army 17-12 behind the running of Joe Bellino, who Sokol thought would make a great pro, although McCarthy thought that he was too small. Anyway, with Navy winning, Sokol’s mood was partly good.

On the other hand, he had read some sad news in the paper that morning and it was making him feel melancholy. He had forgotten about it while he and McCarthy were watching the game. But now, during the monotony of patrol, he had started to brood about it again.

Sokol was fifty years old. In great shape, but fifty nonetheless. Usually this did not bother him, but in this morning’s paper he read that “Amos and Andy” was going off the air for good after thirty-two years on radio. Sokol had grown up on the radio. He had a TV like everybody else, but he still listened to radio and his favorite program was “Amos and Andy.” He almost never missed it. When he heard it was cancelled, he thought about death.

When you are young, fifty seems ancient, but when you are fifty, fifty doesn’t seem that old. You don’t think about death being right around the corner. Unless they cancel a show you have listened to for thirty-two years and you realize that everything ends sometime.

Sokol looked over at McCarthy. A youngster. Twenty-two. Or was it twenty-three? He could never remember. “Amos and Andy” would not have meant a thing to him.

McCarthy was driving. Sokol did not care if he drove or not and McCarthy liked to drive, so McCarthy usually did. Sokol liked the Lookout Park section of his patrol. The park was peaceful and beautiful. There was hardly ever any trouble.

McCarthy swung the patrol car onto one of the unpaved dirt side roads that branched off the main paved road. There was a meadow up ahead. They could park for a bit and have a smoke. The car bounced a little and the jiggling motion of the headlights created an illusion that the trees were dancing.

The dirt road ended and McCarthy pulled the car to the side on the grass.

“Is that a car?” Sokol asked.

McCarthy had not noticed anything and he asked what Sokol meant.

“When you swung around, I thought I saw a car at the far end of the meadow.”

McCarthy swung the car back in the direction in which Sokol had pointed. There was a ’55 Mercury parked near the trees at the far corner of the wide meadow. It looked customized to McCarthy. Red body with red and yellow flames along the side. They drove across the field.

“Probably some kids making out,” Sokol said half wistfully.

McCarthy laughed.

“You want to give them the full treatment?”

Sokol thought about “Amos and Andy” and said “No.”

When they were almost to the car, they could see that there was no one sitting up in the front or rear seats. Sokol hoped that they were not going to find anyone making love.

McCarthy stopped the car at the rear of the driver’s side. He walked toward the driver’s door. Sokol skirted the rear and noticed that the window on the passenger’s side had been smashed in.

McCarthy raised his flashlight so that he could see the inside of the car. The beam illuminated the front seat and Officer Marvin Sokol forgot all about his personal problems.

The coroner’s assistants were trying to remove the body from the front seat of the car and place it on a rubber sheet. They were having trouble maneuvering the head and torso around the steering column, because rigor mortis had set in. One of the men twisted the arm around the steering wheel and Shindler flinched and turned away. When he lit his cigarette, his hand was shaking.

Shindler had been a policeman for six years and a homicide detective for three of those. He was supposed to be conditioned to scenes of violence, but this was something else.

Harvey Marcus, Shindler’s partner, was standing over the rubber sheet, looking down at the blood-splattered still life. Shindler wondered how he kept his poise. When Shindler had viewed the body in the car, he had bitten his lip to gain control. The face had been pulp. The body had been a mass of blood-covered wounds.

“You know, I saw him play on Thanksgiving Day. I go back to the High School every year,” Marcus said.

“Was he any good?” Shindler asked for no reason at all. Marcus shrugged.

“He was okay. He would have made a college team.”

Shindler put out his cigarette. He was going to drop it when he remembered and stuffed it in his raincoat pocket. Clues. He smiled grimly.

“I think there was more than one, Roy,” Marcus said.

“What?”

“I said, I think that he was killed by more than one person.”

“He would have to have been. Jesus, Harvey, did you see his face?”

Marcus did not answer that question. There had been no face in the conventional sense. A young boy like that, Shindler thought. Someone would pay.

“I figure one stabbed him, or kept him at bay, then the other one hit him from behind. Probably with the same thing they used to cave in the car window.”

“A tire iron?”

“It could have been.”

They walked around the rear of the car. All around them policemen scurried with cameras and tape measures. Plastic bags and note pads.

“The ground about twenty feet from here shows scuff marks and there is some blood on a rock that wasn’t washed away by the rain last night.”

Shindler thought about what it would be like to carry the body, still warm, twenty feet to the car and then to stuff it into the front seat. He shuddered involuntarily. He could never have done it.

“Why do you think they moved him?”

“Concealment. Give them more time before it was discovered.”

A young patrolman holding a plastic bag was casting nervous glances at the corpse. The bag was resting on the hood of the Mercury.

“That been dusted?” Marcus asked sharply.

The policeman looked up, startled, snapping his eyes away from the corpse.

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s in the bag?”

“Some of the objects we found in the car.”

Marcus opened the top of the bag and peered into it. His eyes stopped on the purse.

“Where did you find that?”

“It was on the floor under the front seat. We found a woman’s coat in the back seat.”

Marcus started to say something when he was interrupted by a uniformed officer.

“We have a woman who may have seen something. We’re keeping her over by the cars. Her name is Thelma Pullen and she lives on the border of the park near the Monroe Boulevard entrance.”

Marcus and Shindler followed the officer toward a group of police cars that huddled together on the edge of the meadow. A young officer was writing intently in a notebook when they approached. He was talking to a bony, middle-aged woman whose eyes darted nervously toward the ambulance and the body every few seconds.

“I’m Harvey Marcus and this is Roy Shindler, ma’am. I understand you have some information for us.”

“Yes…I mean I don’t know if it’s anything. I just heard about the…the murder on the radio this morning and I thought it might be of importance.”

She stopped and looked back and forth between Marcus and Shindler, waiting for some word of approval. Marcus gave it to her.

“We appreciate your help. Now what did you see or hear?”

“Well, I live near the entrance to the park. My backyard runs right into the woods at the edge of the park. We used to get a lot of prowlers. Kids mostly.

“John-that’s my husband-he’s a salesman and he’s away a lot. He was worried that someone might break in while he was away. We’ve been burglarized twice already. So he bought two German Shepherd guard dogs.

“Last night, I was sleeping, when the dogs woke me. They were out in the yard. I let them roam out there and they have a large doghouse. They’re on a leash, but it’s pretty long.

“Anyway, I got up and looked outside and I saw a girl running away. It was dark, and she was almost off of the property when I looked, but I’m certain it was a girl and she seemed to be coming out of the woods. At least, she was running from the woods.”

“About what time was this, Mrs. Pullen?” Shindler asked.

“I thought about that and I really don’t know. I didn’t look at a clock, but I did go to bed at midnight, so it must have been after that.”

“Well, thank you, Mrs. Pullen. This officer will take a detailed statement from you and we will be back in touch later. I appreciate your taking the time to come up here. If we had more good citizens like you, our job would be a lot easier.”

The woman blushed and shrugged.

“I just thought it might be important.”

She turned toward the ambulance again.

“The radio said he was…was stabbed?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She shuddered.

“The park used to be a nice place to live. In the last few years, it’s gotten so bad we’re thinking of moving.”

She shook her head and Shindler and Marcus walked away. Marcus spotted a short, slender man in civilian clothes standing halfway across the meadow. He called out to him. The man looked up and waved and Marcus signaled for him to meet them by Walter’s car.

“Giannini,” Marcus asked when they reached the vehicle, “did you go through the car?”

“First thing,” Giannini answered.

“Did you find anything that suggests that there was a girl with the boy?”

“I’m afraid so.” Giannini glanced at the plastic bag that still sat on the hood. “You’ve seen the purse? There was a woman’s coat in the back seat and I found a button that looks like it came from a woman’s blouse on the front seat. Mort found a piece of broken fingernail with nail polish on it on the floor of the car below the steering wheel.”

Marcus sent Giannini back to the field.

“A girl, too,” Shindler said.

“It makes sense. A good-looking kid like that out here in Lover’s Lane on a Friday night. There would have to be a girl.”

“Then where is she?”

Shindler turned to the young officer who was watching the property bag.

“Has that purse been checked for I.D. yet?”

“Yes, sir. The purse belongs to an Elaine Murray.”

Shindler mulled this over for a moment. Then he ducked his head inside the car and fiddled with the catch on the glove compartment. The metal door flopped down. There were some road maps, a triple A book and a package of Trojans. He remembered that the kid had one in his wallet.

“You don’t think it’s possible that the girl killed him, do you?” Shindler asked.

“It’s possible, but she would have needed help.”

“And, if she wasn’t involved…”

“Then, my young friend,” Marcus said, “we have something more than murder.”

Harvey Marcus had been on the force for eighteen years. When Shindler had transferred to Homicide, Marcus had taken him under his wing. He had been fascinated by the shy and awkward young detective who seemed so lost inside his large, ungainly body. Marcus and Shindler had been partners for three years now and Shindler was still a mystery to Marcus. Marcus had noticed his partner’s emotional response to the boy’s body. He was surprised by it, but this was not out of character for Shindler, whose moods shifted unpredictably and who could be intensely emotional one minute and icily intellectual the next.

Shindler was a solitary man. He was a bachelor. A twenty-four-hour cop. He could be charming when his job required it, but Marcus had never seen him with his guard down in a social situation. Once, Ruth, Marcus’s wife, had tried to fix him up with one of her fellow teachers. Marcus had warned her, but she had insisted. The evening had been a disaster. Roy had squirmed through dinner, saying almost nothing. He would not speak to Marcus for two days.

“This is it,” Marcus said.

The Walters’ house was a two-story, white suburban ranch constructed of brick. A beautifully manicured lawn sprinkled with a few large shade trees framed it. Shindler parked the car and they followed a slate walk to the front door.

A young-looking woman in her early forties opened the door. Shindler felt his stomach tighten and his throat go dry. After all the times he had done it, he had still not found an easy way to tell the survivors about their dead.

“Mrs. Walters?”

“Yes,” she answered through the screen door.

He held out his badge.

“I’m Detective Shindler and this is Detective Marcus. We’re with the Portsmouth Police.”

In the space of a second, the woman’s face showed fear, hope and puzzlement. She stepped back and ushered them in.

“Is this about Richie? Have you found him?”

“Yes, it is. Is your husband home?”

“Of course. I’ll call him.”

She walked a few steps down a hallway carpeted in powder blue and called her husband. Shindler looked into the stylishly furnished living room. Everything was done in soft yellows and blues. There was a comfortable-looking sofa.

“Can we sit down?” he asked. She would need to when he told her why they had come. There was a bar in one corner. That was good.

“Mrs. Walters, where did your son go last night?”

Before she could answer, a tall, thin man with a balding head and a warm, self-confident look entered from the hallway. He was a man who was used to being in charge. Even so, Shindler thought, that look of self-confidence would have to have been put on this morning. He had to be nervous about his son’s disappearance.

The detectives stood up.

“Dear, this is Detective Shindler and Detective Marcus. They’re here about Richie.”

There was an anxious note in her speech. Mr. Walters shook hands. He had a firm grip. Businessman or lawyer, Shindler mused. He looked like he would be capable of handling his wife’s and his sorrow.

“I certainly appreciate this quick service,” he said.

“Pardon?” Marcus asked.

“We only called in about Richie an hour ago,” Mr. Walters explained.

“I see. When did you last see your son, Mr. Walters?”

“Friday night. He had a date and he left the house about eight o’clock.”

Mr. Walters paused. For the first time, a flicker of doubt intruded on his self-confidence.

“Is there something wrong? Is he hurt?”

They never imagine the worst. They never ask you if he is dead. They just prod a little, not really wanting to know.

“Who was your son out with?”

“His girlfriend, Elaine Murray. They were going to a movie. He often comes in late and we don’t hear him. I thought he might be sleeping late. He always closes the door to his room when he is sleeping, so I didn’t know if he was in or out. Then I checked his bed and it hadn’t been slept in.”

Mrs. Walters stopped talking. Somewhere during the speech her hand had entwined with her husband’s and they had moved closer together.

“Why did you call the police? It’s less than a day since he went out.”

Mr. Walters looked relieved.

“I told Carla we should have waited,” he said. Carla Walters turned toward her husband. She was beginning to think that he had been right. That she had overreacted.

“I…Maybe I was foolish. But I called the Murrays and Elaine hadn’t come home either.”

“I see,” Shindler said. Now came the hard part. The part that he had been putting off. He tried to think of a diplomatic way of phrasing it. There was none.

“I’m afraid that I have some very bad news for you.”

He could picture what they were going through. It was the same vertigo that he had felt years ago when he sat with his family in their living room and a balding detective with tired eyes told them that Abe was dead. He had felt himself spinning then as the Walters must be spinning now.

Shindler laid the autopsy report on Marcus’s desk and pulled up a chair. The Homicide Bureau of the Portsmouth Police Department was no different than any of the other detective divisions. It was a large, antiseptic room filled with old wooden desks at which sat poorly dressed men of varying shapes, ages and sizes. The only thing that they had in common was their cynicism.

“It’s all in there. I had a chat with Beauchamp and he said he thinks that there must have been at least two people with two different weapons.”

Shindler picked up the report. The autopsy had been performed by Dr. Francis R. Beauchamp, the County Medical Examiner. He had found multiple stab wounds to the body, a skull fracture and other abrasions involving portions of the body, all of which indicated that some type of severe altercation had occurred. There was blood on the body and stab and puncture wounds and there were abrasions and bruises around the scrotum. The head injury was a depressed skull fracture made from behind by some type of blunt instrument. The stab wounds were generally about one-half inch in length and about a quarter or an eighth inch in width. Some of them were three to three and one-half inches deep, penetrating to the diaphragm. A total of twenty puncture wounds were found. Death was due to internal bleeding into the left chest cavity as one of the puncture wounds had passed through the lung.

“Beauchamp thinks that the wounds that did the damage were made by a sharp-bladed instrument. He thinks Walters was standing upright and that the killer approached from the front and left side to have made the death wound.”

“What about the damage to the head?”

“After. It was inflicted when he was down.”

“You mean they beat him like that after he was dead?”

Marcus nodded.

“What kind of animals are we dealing with, Harvey?”

“The worst kind, Roy. You see that sentence about the depressed fracture. Beauchamp explained that to me. There are two types of fracture, a linear fracture, in which the skull is simply split or cracked, and a depressed fracture in which the skull is physically driven into the brain, just like splitting a melon. Those boys did a lot of extra work on Walters and none of it was necessary. They must have known that he was dead, but they struck him on the head in several places. There was a prominent injury above the left ear where the wound gaped so wide that you could see the brain through the wound and another where the skull was so badly smashed that his brain actually spilled through the wound.”

Marcus was speaking in low, clipped tones. Shindler was thinking of the boy’s head, the way he had seen it in the car. All that done after he was dead. Then lifting him and putting him in the car.

“Have they found the girl yet?” he asked quietly.

Marcus shook his head.

“That park is nine square miles and it’s all timber and brush. There are hundreds of ravines and culverts in there that are overgrown with vegetation. If she’s dead and they’ve hidden her in the park, we might never find her.”

The phone rang. Shindler answered it. He was grateful for the distraction. It was the secretary at the front desk.

“There’s a Mr. Shultz calling with information about the Walters murder. Should I put him through?”

There had been the usual number of nut calls that the police get on any publicized homicide, but Shindler was not passing over any possible leads.

“Put him through, Margie.”

There was a click and a man said “Hello.”

“Mr. Shultz? I’m Detective Roy Shindler. I understand you have some information on the murder of Richie Walters?”

“I’m not certain it will help, but my wife told me to call. We went to dinner Friday night at a restaurant just off of Monroe Boulevard. We finished very late. About eleven thirty we were walking to our car, which we had parked on Monroe, when we saw two cars racing each other. I noticed one, because it was very fancy. I think they said customed or customized. The other one, I’m not sure about. I really didn’t pay much attention to it.

“This morning I read in the papers about that murder in the park. The car I saw sounds like the one they described in the paper. If I could see it, I could tell for sure.”

“We can send an officer out to drive you downtown, if that’s all right.”

“Sure. But I’m not finished. There was something else. The red car-the one I remember-it made the other car crash.”

“It made it crash?”

“Yes. I don’t know what happened, because we looked away and they were several blocks away when we heard it. But we heard a crash and the other car-the dark one-was spun around in our direction. I guess the car wasn’t damaged too bad, because it drove away in a little bit.”

“Well, thank you, Mr. Shultz. That is important information. I’ll send an officer out to see you and to take a statement. Thanks, again.”

Giannini had called them down to the lab fifteen minutes after Mr. Shultz’s call. They had found something at the scene and he wanted them to see it.

“First, the small stuff. We found no prints in or on the car. The car had been wiped pretty thoroughly. We found a man’s sock under the car when we moved it and another man’s sock near the area where the dirt road enters the meadow. There were some fibers that we have matched with the socks that were found under the windshield wipers. It’s my guess that the killer used the socks like gloves and wiped the prints off of the car.”

“Is there any way of tracing a person through the socks?”

“Oh, we know where the socks came from. Walters was barefoot. I already had someone check with the family. They’re his socks.”

Giannini glanced down at a sheet of paper he was holding.

“Next, it looks like the motive wasn’t robbery. There was thirty dollars in his wallet and twenty in the purse. There was also an expensive camera in the back seat.”

“You said that you had something important for us,” Shindler prodded.

“Right.”

Giannini walked over to a filing cabinet and rummaged in one of the steel drawers.

“One of my men came across this stuff in some bushes near the base of the hill that leads down from the meadow to the paved road.”

Shindler had a rough picture of the place. The dirt road wound upward from the paved road for a while, then straightened out into the meadow. If you did not use the dirt road, a straight line would take you down an embankment that had several steep sections. The embankment was covered with underbrush.

Giannini pulled three items out of a manila envelope and set them on a table. There was a cigarette lighter, a blue rat-tail comb and a pair of feminine glasses. The glasses were constructed out of plastic and metal. The temples were made of yellow gold wire. The frames were reddish plastic on top and yellow gold on the bottom. The top piece curled up at the ends and was harlequin-shaped with rhinestone trim at the tips.

“Dr. Webber?” Marcus inquired.

“Yes.”

“I’m Detective Marcus. I called you from my office an hour ago.”

The optometrist had been unlocking his door when Marcus approached him in the hallway of his office building.

“I apologize for asking you to work on your day off, but this is very important.”

“Of course. Come in. I wasn’t doing anything anyway and this makes for an exciting break in my routine.”

The doctor turned on the lights and led Marcus through a small waiting room into a large office lined with medical books. The doctor sat behind a paper-covered desk and motioned Marcus into an easy chair.

“Greg Heller told me that you helped him out in a burglary case a few years ago.”

“Oh, that.” The doctor smiled. “Yes. He needed to trace a person through a pair of glasses and I showed him how to do it.”

“I have the same problem that Greg had, but our situation is more urgent. Have you read the morning papers? The story about the boy who was murdered in Lookout Park?”

“The Walters boy. Terrible. His family belongs to my church. I don’t know them well, but the boy was thought of very highly.”

That was the general picture so far, Marcus thought. Nobody with a bad word about Richie Walters.

“What I am going to tell you is just between us. We are going to let the story break soon enough, because we don’t think that we can keep it quiet for too long, but I want your word that you won’t leak what I tell you.”

“Certainly.”

“There was a girl with Walters and she’s missing. We are searching the woods and we didn’t want thrill seekers out messing up the investigation. We also wanted to give the people who have her, if she is still alive, a chance to make contact, if this is a kidnapping.

“So far, we have only one clue to the identity of the people involved: a pair of woman’s glasses. I was hoping that you could tell me how to find the owner.”

“Did Greg tell you what was involved the last time?”

“No. He just said that you knew how to do it.”

“I know, but it’s not easy and it’s not fast. Did you bring the glasses?”

Marcus fished an envelope out of his overcoat pocket. He handed the glasses to the doctor.

“Prescriptions are a lot like fingerprints,” Dr. Webber said as he rotated the glasses in his hands. “It is highly unlikely that you would find two people with identical prescriptions and identical frames.

“We have four numbers to work with for comparison. When someone comes to me for glasses, I determine what his prescription should be. I don’t grind the lenses myself, so I send written instructions to the people who construct the lenses. When they receive my instructions, they take an unfinished lens. One that has not been worked on. The curvature of the surface of that lens is called the basic curve.

“I instruct the workmen to alter the entire curvature of the lens surface to form a new curve. This new curve is called the sphere.

“Next, I instruct the workmen to alter the curve of the sphere at the point where the pupil is centered. The area of the lens that the wearer looks out of. This means that the lens will have two different adjustments on its surface: the sphere, which covers the whole lens, and the new curve, ground on the sphere, where the line of vision is. The smaller curve is called the cylinder.

“Finally, I will instruct the workmen to grind the cylinder at a particular angle. It could be 45 degrees, 30 degrees, etc. This angle is called the axis.

“The four numbers for comparison, then, are the basic curve, the sphere, the cylinder curve and the axis. I have a machine in my examining room that looks like a microscope. It’s called a Lensometer and I can put these glasses under it and find the prescription for you.”

“And no two people will have the same prescription?”

“They shouldn’t. Of course, you also have the frames. This is made by American Optical. The name is stamped on the inside of the temple. It’s a Gay Mount. That is the style. The size of this frame is 46-20 and that varies from person to person also. So you have another figure for comparison.”

“That’s just great. I’d appreciate it if you could get that prescription for me.”

Dr. Webber left for five minutes. When he returned, he handed Marcus a sheet of paper with a series of numbers on it.

“This has the information you need. It will make sense to any optometrist. You will have to circulate this and get them to check their files. That is going to take some time, I’m afraid. I wish there was some quicker way.”

“So do I, Doctor, but, right now, we have no choice.”

3

Three days after Richie Walters died, winter began with a vengeance. Temperatures dropped near zero. People started staying indoors and snow and wind made the price of firewood soar. And through it all the searchers went out daily hunting for Elaine Murray.

The fact of Miss Murray’s disappearance and the police search was revealed in the Monday morning papers. The Marine, Navy and Coast Guard Reserve volunteered 125 men and the Boy Scouts rounded up forty more. During the first few days of the search the weather was still mild and the area around the meadow was cluttered with thrill seekers.

The story dominated the headlines in the Portsmouth Herald and several of the eastern papers picked up on the “Lover’s Lane” murder and the hunt for the missing girl. The investigation turned up no new clues and the only real lead, the glasses, was kept from the public.

On December 28, 1960, the search for Elaine Murray was officially called off. Then 1960 became 1961. A new President of the United States was sworn in and more current events took hold of the public imagination and the Murray-Walters case drifted farther back in the pages of the Herald until it disappeared.

Roy Shindler’s six foot five inch body slumped in his favorite armchair. A book lay face down in his lap and he stared hypnotically at the cold, sleeting rain that beat against the living room window of his small, one-bedroom apartment. The apartment was tidy, yet cluttered. Shindler tried to maintain order, but often failed through lack of interest.

The detective was a resident of the city. He had been born there and he had been raised in its poorer parts. His father had been a shoemaker at a time when nobody seemed able to afford repairs. His mother worked as a sales clerk in a department store. She was always tired. His father was always silent. His childhood, the life of his family, had been a canvas of grays, except for one spot of shining white. Abe.

Abe had been a shooting star, always on the ascendancy. A person to be looked up to. He transcended their drab apartment, the monotony of life behind a sales counter or in the backroom of a shoe repair shop where people never came. On Saturdays, the family could watch from the stands at the high school as Abe floated downfield, avoiding outstretched arms, to stand in the end zone, ball held high above his head as the crowd screamed its adulation. In heated gymnasiums in the midst of winter, the family would join the crowd, Roy’s father more strident than any other, as it cheered on Abe, who could score a basket with the grace of a ballet dancer. He was the best in sports and a top scholar. But most of all he had been a warm, caring human being. After Abe died, everyone talked about him the way they were eulogizing Richie Walters now.

Roy had always done well in school and, for all his lack of grace, he had been good at sports, but his father never noticed. He saw only Abe. Had Abe been someone other than the person he was Roy might have hated and resented him. But Abe was Abe and Roy worshipped his older brother.

In the first year of college, on scholarship at an eastern university that would groom him for the medical profession, he had excelled. He had come home for intersession, at great personal expense to Roy’s father, to tell in person the tales that they had read in the sports section of the Herald. He had died in the snow returning home from an evening with his old high school friends. The detective who told them was sorry. He had been a fan, but then who hadn’t been. The detective said that the motive was robbery. The person who murdered Abe was never caught.

When Abe died, the family died. Roy tried night school. He wanted an education, and his grades were good at first, but he wore down. He had to work all day because his father could no longer manage. He had to do the cooking and the housework. The oppressive atmosphere of the small apartment drained his resources. He found himself sleeping in class, unable to complete his assignments. He was too tired to study in the late evening, the only time he could call his own, when his father and mother were asleep and he could finally be alone in the solitude of his room.

He was never quite certain why he had turned to police work. At first, when he was new to the tensions and danger of the job, he thought about his choice a lot. Perhaps, subconsciously, he felt that he would someday find the person who had murdered his brother. Perhaps he had joined because the job was night work and presented a justification for sleeping away the daytime when his parents roamed the apartment like lost souls, sitting silently for hours at a time, rising slowly and without reason to wander to another chair by another dust-coated window.

His father had died during his second year on the force and his mother had passed away two months later. It had been a relief to Roy. He had moved out of their apartment into another apartment just as small and just as barren.

Before they died, Roy had imagined that their passing would somehow liberate him, but it had only left a void. The patterns of a quarter of a century are difficult to change. He had re-registered at the night branch of the state university. There even had been a girl. She had been quiet and bookish. Their dates had been a series of long pauses punctuated by discussions intentionally abstract and intellectual, as if both were afraid to communicate anything resembling a true feeling. They had lived together for a short time, but the barriers had never fallen and they had parted friends for whom a closer relationship had not worked out.

Roy’s fellow officers found him strange. Intensely emotional about abstract ideas, yet cold as ice in life-and-death situations. It was as if Abe’s death had killed all personal joy for him, leaving only the hard shell of his intellectualism to shield him from life’s realities. The Walters boy reminded him of Abe in so many ways that the investigation operated like a scalpel that was peeling through the layers of his own personal wounds and baring the grief that he had believed to be long buried.

An hour ago, Shindler had tried to read, but his mind wandered and he had given up the attempt. It was the case. Several times he had even dreamed about it. He could not stop thinking about what had happened to that boy.

“You can’t let a case get to you, Roy,” Harvey had said. “If you become personally involved, you don’t do your job.”

“Intellectually, I know you’re right, but I can’t help it. It’s the things I’m learning about him. I’ve talked to dozens of people and not one has had a bad word to say. It’s not just because he’s dead, either. You can tell.

“And you know what hurts most?” he said. “I was at the house again, yesterday. His mother was beginning to handle it. Mr. Walters said she was back on her feet. They even went out to dinner. Then they got yesterday’s mail. He was accepted at Harvard. Harvard. Jesus. That kid could have been a doctor, a scientist. Anything.”

The phone rang and Roy sighed and walked into the kitchen.

“Roy?”

It was Harvey Marcus.

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“I just got a call from a Dr. Norman Trembler, an optometrist in Glendale. He read the bulletin on the glasses and he thinks he’s found the person with the prescription.”

“Did you get the name and address?” Shindler asked. He could feel Marcus’s excitement. There was a certain electricity generated whenever good, solid police work paid off.

“I’ve got it. We went over everything on the phone. He sold a pair of glasses just like the ones we found to an Esther Freemont, 2219 North 82nd Street.”

The Freemont house had seen better days. The small front lawn was overgrown with weeds and no one seemed to care about cutting the grass that was left. The wood had a gray, weatherbeaten appearance. It had not been painted in some time.

Marcus and Shindler stepped over some broken toys and walked up the creaking front stairs to the porch. There were soiled curtains on the front window and over the small glass window in the upper half of the front door. A tricycle lay on its side on the porch. Marcus could hear a TV blaring inside. A baby was crying and someone was yelling. There was no doorbell so Marcus knocked loudly on the door frame.

There was someone shuffling toward the door. The curtain over the front door glass raised and a bloated face peered out. Marcus flashed his badge and the door opened warily.

The woman standing in the doorway was well over two hundred pounds. The weight was collected in rolls of fat over large thighs and sagging breasts. She wore a soiled gray dress that covered her like a tent. An apron hung over the dress. Her eyes were bloodshot and held no sign of cheer. Marcus suspected that she had been drinking. A cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth and medium-length graying hair straggled across her forehead.

The inside of the house was a reflection of the personality of the owner, Marcus decided. A heavy, unpleasant smell hung in the air. The rooms were dark and untidy. How could humans live this way? He was always asking questions like that and never finding the answers.

“Mrs. Freemont?”

“I was. It’s Taylor now.”

“Are you Esther Freemont’s mother?”

“What’s she done now?” she said with bored disgust. Without waiting for an answer, she turned her head and yelled angrily into the interior of the house.

“Esther, you get out here.”

A voice answered unintelligibly over the roar of applause on a TV game show.

“Turn that goddamn thing down and get out here,” Mrs. Taylor yelled.

The sound level did not diminish, but a young girl came around the corner of the living room. When she saw the two men in suits, she stopped, then continued toward them at a slower pace.

Shindler watched her walk across the room, the way a hunter watches his prey. Esther was tall for a girl. Shindler judged her to be about sixteen years old. She was wearing blue jeans and a white tee shirt that covered large, swaying breasts. Shindler realized that she was braless and the excitement generated by the police investigation blended subconsciously with an undercurrent of sexual desire.

Esther’s skin was smooth and dark. Her long, dark hair was as dirty and unkempt as her mother’s. Involuntarily, Shindler began to think of her in sexual terms.

“These men want to see you. They’re police. What have you done now?”

Esther’s large brown eyes moved from her mother to the detectives without answering. She appeared to be nervous, but no more than any other person confronted by the law.

“We have no reason to believe that your daughter has done anything wrong, Mrs. Taylor. This is just part of an investigation we’re conducting. We just want to ask your daughter a few questions.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Taylor said. Marcus thought she sounded disappointed.

“Is there someplace we could talk?” Shindler asked.

Mrs. Taylor looked around the cluttered living room. The couch was covered with unwashed laundry and the nearest chair was occupied by a cat. Mrs. Taylor headed toward the back of the house. They followed her into the kitchen. A portable TV was resting on the sink. A baby in a high chair stopped screaming when they entered.

Chairs were arranged on each side of a yellow formica-topped table. Marcus and Shindler motioned Esther into one and took two of the others. Mrs. Taylor hovered over her daughter.

“Could we?” Shindler asked, motioning toward the TV…Mrs. Taylor looked confused for a moment, then leaned over and turned the sound off. The picture remained on.

“Esther, this is Detective Marcus and I am Detective Shindler. We are investigating the murder of Richie Walters and the disappearance of Elaine Murray, who were students at Stuyvesant.”

Marcus was watching her. There was no trace of fear. If anything, she seemed relieved when they said that the investigation was not about her.

“Is…is she dead?”

“Pardon?”

“Elaine. You said disappeared. Is she dead?”

“We don’t know, Esther. We have men out searching, but we still haven’t found her.”

“Gee, that’s sad. I knew Richie from school. I didn’t know him real well. He was in different classes. But…you know, being from the same school and all, it’s like he was a friend. I cried when I read about it in the papers.”

“Do you know Elaine Murray?”

“Well, not to talk to, but I knew her. She was…is real pretty. I hope she’s okay.”

“We do too, Esther. Can you remember where you were on the Friday night that Richie was killed?”

Esther looked nervously at her mother, then back to the detectives.

“Why do you want to know where I was?”

“This is just routine, Esther. We have to check up on everyone,” Marcus said.

“You don’t think she had anything to do with that killing?” Mrs. Taylor asked incredulously.

“You ain’t going to take me to detention?”

Esther was panicky. She started to stand. Marcus laughed. It was a made-up laugh that Shindler had heard before. Esther looked confused.

“No one is going to detention and no one thinks you killed anybody. Now just relax and tell me where you were so I can fill out my report. Okay?”

To Shindler, Esther looked like a trapped animal. Her eyes shifted from face to face and her hands were slowly washing one another.

“You tell them where you were,” Mrs. Taylor said, suddenly angry. “I just remembered where she was.”

Esther hung her head and bit her lip.

“She was drunk, that’s where she was. She come home late and puked all over the bathroom.”

No one can look more dejected than an embarrassed adolescent girl, Shindler thought. Esther looked as if she wanted to crawl inside herself.

“How did you get drunk?” Marcus asked.

“You promise I won’t go to juvenile detention?”

Marcus smiled his best fatherly interrogation smile.

“Don’t worry about detention, Esther. We are only interested in Richie Walters’s murder. Look, I used to drink more than a wee bit myself when I was your age. So, why don’t you tell us what happened.”

“Well, to tell the truth,” Esther said sheepishly, “I can’t remember it all. I was pretty drunk and it’s kind of hazy.”

“Tell us what you can remember.”

“Roger, he’s my boyfriend, and me and Bobby and Billy Coolidge went to Hamburger Heaven. Then, we went to a party. It was after the party that we got drunk.” She stopped and looked pleadingly at Marcus. “Do I have to tell? I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

“Answer their questions,” Mrs. Taylor barked. “I told you I didn’t want you hanging around with that Hessey. He’s no good, like the rest of those hoodlums.”

“How did you get drunk, Esther? Don’t worry about getting anyone in trouble. We won’t tell anyone what happened,” Marcus said.

“It was Billy. He swiped some wine while the grocer wasn’t looking at one of these all-night places. He took a few bottles. We drank it in the car. That’s where it gets fuzzy. I guess I don’t drink so well and I must have had too much, because I really don’t remember after the wine. Except I remember we drank it in the car and I think we went cruising downtown after that.”

Shindler reached in his pocket.

“Do you wear glasses?”

Esther did not answer for a moment. She ran her tongue across her lips.

“Talk up. Yeah, she has glasses to read,” Mrs. Taylor said.

“Do you have your glasses, Esther?”

Esther did not say anything. She stared at the table.

“Esther, where are those glasses?” Mrs. Taylor asked menacingly. “Goddamn it, if you lost those glasses again, you ain’t getting new ones.”

“I’m sorry, Ma,” Esther blurted out. “They were stolen. It was three months ago. I was afraid to tell you.”

“Who stole them?” Mrs. Taylor demanded.

“I don’t know. I swear. I was afraid you would get mad, so I didn’t tell and I thought maybe they would turn up.”

“What was the exact day your glasses were stolen, Esther?” Shindler interrupted.

“It wasn’t just the glasses. It was some other stuff from my purse. And I can’t remember the exact day. I just know it was in early November.”

“Are these your glasses?” Shindler asked, placing an envelope on the table. Esther picked up the envelope and took out the glasses.

“They look like them, but I can’t tell until I put them on.”

“Go ahead.”

Esther fit them on her nose. She picked up a True Confession from the sink and scanned a page.

“These are mine. Can I have them back?”

“I’m afraid not right now. They’re evidence.”

“Evidence for what?” Mrs. Taylor asked.

“Did you also lose a lighter and a comb, Esther?”

“Yes,” she answered hesitantly.

“Where did you find those?” Mrs. Taylor asked.

“The comb, the lighter and the glasses were found near the scene of the Walters murder. It is possible that the person who stole your daughter’s glasses was involved in the murder.”

“So she can’t get them back?”

“Not for a while.”

“Well, that’s fine. And how am I supposed to get her new ones?”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you there.”

“Damn it, Esther, this is your fault. You’re always losing things. Well, this time you don’t get new glasses till you pay for them.”

They left the house with Esther in tears. Shindler watched her intently: slumped in her chair, head buried in her slim brown arms, shoulders raked with sobs. He felt an icy contempt for her and something else he would not allow himself to name.

“She knows something,” Shindler said.

“That girl?” Marcus asked incredulously. “She doesn’t know a thing.”

“I can feel it, Harvey.”

“You want to feel it. Christ, Roy, she was more worried about being taken to juvenile detention for being under age and drinking then she was about being involved in a murder investigation.”

“I don’t buy the coincidence. Her stolen glasses just happen to turn up at the scene.”

“Now wait a minute. The glasses were found near, not at, the scene, down the hill and quite some way from where the car was located.”

“Right where someone who was running from the scene in a panic might drop it.”

Marcus shook his head.

“I’m afraid I’m not with you on this one, Roy. If you want to follow up on Esther Freemont, you do it on your own.”

The radio crackled and Shindler lifted the mike and gave their call letters. The radio dispatcher told them that they had found Elaine Murray.

They had been looking in the wrong places. The girl had never been in Portsmouth. There was an offshoot of the main highway that led to the coast. It was not heavily traveled, especially this time of year. Walter Haas and his wife, Susan, had been headed for their folks’ house in Sandy Cove when their car got a flat. Walter had pulled onto a shoulder and had gone out into a torrential downpour to change the tire. The ground was muddy and slippery and he had lost his balance, sending the jack handle over the embankment. He could see the body when he looked over the side. It looked to Shindler as if it had been tossed over the edge of the grassy downslope from the road like a sack of wheat.

The rain was making it difficult for everyone. There was no possibility of finding any tracks. The roadway would leave none and the shoulder was a miniature swamp.

Shindler half slid, half scrambled down the embankment. A small group of officers were beating the tall grass for evidence. Marcus had gone over to a large man dressed in a rain slicker and wide-brimmed hat. Shindler looked down at the body. Someone had had the decency to cover it with a blanket. He raised the corner and looked.

He almost retched. The head was almost denuded of tissue and the scalp had practically rotted away. He moved his eyes away from the face. She was wearing tan toreador slacks, but the zipper was undone, as if someone had put them on her. Her only other piece of clothing was a white blouse. It was unbuttoned and the left side had flapped over, revealing her left breast.

Shindler was churning inside. He could feel the adrenaline conquering the initial effects of the nausea. Then he saw her feet and he started to shake. He did not know why the fact that she was barefoot should affect him so. What could it matter? She was dead. But then the whole thing was illogical. How could two young people such as these be struck down at the beginning of their lives.

Shindler covered Elaine Murray and walked up the hill with the rain stinging him. He stood by his car and breathed deeply until he was in control. Then he joined Marcus.

“Roy, this is Larry Tenneck, Meridian County Sheriff’s Office.”

They shook hands.

“It’s a pity, ain’t it?” Tenneck said. “A young girl like that.”

“Any idea how long she’s been down there?”

“Not a one. This stretch of road isn’t heavily traveled in the winter. I don’t think she was killed here. Course with the rain and all you couldn’t really tell, but I figure she was just left here, because whoever killed her figured she wouldn’t be found for a while.”

“You’re probably right,” Marcus agreed. “The autopsy should tell us a few things.”

“Speaking of autopsies, can we move her now? I told the boys to leave her till you got here, but I think it would be better to have her taken out of the rain.”

“Of course. You took pictures?”

Tenneck nodded and signaled to two men who were smoking in the front seat of an ambulance that was parked alongside the road. One man nodded and flicked a cigarette out of the ambulance window. Tenneck shook his head.

“I wish they wouldn’t do that. We have enough trouble as it is with littering. You boys’ll want to see the clothes, I guess.”

“Clothes?” Shindler asked.

“Oh, yeah. We found the rest of her clothes. Deputy found them over in that grass about a hundred yards from the body. I guess they dumped her, then threw the rest of her stuff over the side.”

Tenneck reached into the back seat of his car and pulled out a plastic sack. Harvey opened the rear door and sat inside. Shindler sat next to him and Tenneck leaned in through the window, oblivious to the rain. There was a red and black ski sweater, a torn brassiere and a pair of panties in the bag. The panties were torn in several places and Roy realized that they had actually been torn in two at one point near the right hip.

“We better have Beauchamp check for signs of rape,” Marcus said in a low, hard voice.

“That’s the first thing I thought of when I seen them,” Tenneck said. For the first time since they had talked with him, Shindler noticed that he had lost his country calm.

“You do me a favor, will ya. You get these boys and get them good.”

Dr. Francis R. Beauchamp, like Roy Shindler, was a man of odd proportions. There, however, the similarities ceased. Where Shindler was tall and thin, with a small head and bulbous nose and overlong arms connected to oversize hands, Beauchamp was short and squat and possessed of a large melon-sized head that overbalanced his entire body, giving the impression that a quick, downward nod would pitch him forward. His tiny hands were heavily veined and his imperfect eyesight was aided by tortoiseshell glasses that perched on a thin, delicately shaped nose.

Shindler and Marcus were seated in the waiting room of the Heavenly Rest Funeral Parlor in Perryville, Meridian County’s county seat. Shindler had smoked all the cigarettes in his pack and was debating with himself the pros and cons of braving the elements in search of pie and coffee when the door opened and Beauchamp flopped onto a couch upholstered in a peach-colored material upon which fluttered flocks of smiling cherubim.

“Strangulation,” he said. He looked tired. They had called him from the Sheriff’s office and made him drive out in the night. “Probably done with the cord that was found stuffed into the waistband of her slacks.”

“How long has she been dead?”

Beauchamp pursed his lips.

“I’ll say four to six weeks.”

“The body didn’t look that bad, except for the head,” Marcus said.

“It’s the weather. Gets cold out here. Cold retards the deterioration. Say, can I get a cup of coffee and some food? I’m really beat.”

He looked tired, Shindler thought. We’re all tired.

“On me. Grab your coat and I’ll stake you at the first hamburger joint we find.”

“Last of the big spenders. You bastards owe me more than hamburger for this job.”

“Was there anything else?” Shindler asked. They all knew what he meant.

“Yes. Poor thing.”

Beauchamp sighed and removed his glasses. He closed his eyes and rubbed the eyelids with his thumb and the knuckle of his index finger.

“There were hemorrhages on the front and back surfaces of the uterus. In my opinion they could have been caused by a blow to the lower abdomen or by vigorous intercourse. If it was intercourse, she would have had to have been unusually active.

“I also found morphologically identifiable sperm in the vagina.”

“What is that? Morphologically identifiable.”

“It means that I could tell it was sperm. It was dead, but it was there.”

“And what does all that mean?” Shindler wanted to know.

“It means that I think that more than one man had her shortly before she died and it means that I think they had her over and over again. Then they killed her. That’s an unscientific opinion, so don’t hold me to it. But, then, I’m not feeling too scientific tonight. Dr. Harold Murray is a good friend of mine and I have been thinking of how lucky I am that I don’t have to be the one who tells him what happened to his daughter.”

4

It was April and Shindler was the only detective still working on the Murray-Walters case. The problem was that there was nothing to work on. The general consensus was that the couple had been murdered by persons unknown, for reasons unknown, which would remain unknown. Shindler did not buy that. He would not. He thought about the thirty dollars in Richie’s wallet and the expensive camera on the back seat. Anybody cool enough to put Richie’s body in the car would have been cool enough to take the money and the camera, if the motive had been robbery. There had to have been some other motive and if there was a motive it was created by something that happened prior to the killings.

So Shindler was searching for motive and finding none. He had compiled a list of everyone who knew the couple and from each interviewee he was learning that no one could possibly have wanted Elaine Murray or Richie Walters dead.

Alice Fay was one of the prettiest girls on the list and Shindler was grateful for some stimulation after the dull morning he had spent. It was Easter recess, so she was home from school. Her father was working and her mother was shopping. She would not open the door until Shindler displayed his badge. When he told her that he was investigating the deaths of her two schoolmates, she said, “Oh” softly and let him in.

He chatted about the weather and school vacation as he followed her down the hall into the kitchen. She had been seated at the kitchen table reading Seventeen. The magazine was turned to an article on fall campus fashions. She motioned Shindler into a chair.

“You’re going to college next fall?” he asked.

“The University of Wisconsin.”

“What do you want to study?”

Alice smiled and shrugged.

“I really don’t know. I might go into nursing, but right now I’ll just take liberal arts and then decide after I have some time to think.”

“That’s a good way to do it. You have plenty of time to be serious when you get old like me.”

Alice laughed.

“You aren’t that old.”

“I get older every day.”

He smiled at her and she asked him if she could get him some coffee.

“Do you think you will catch the people who murdered Richie and Elaine?” she asked as she turned on the light under the coffee pot.

“I don’t know. We haven’t made much progress. That’s why I am talking to everyone who knew them. Anything that you can think of that might be of help would be appreciated.”

Alice sat down again. She appeared to be smart as well as good looking, Shindler thought. She would be a good catch for some lucky man.

“I would help if I could, but I honestly can’t think of a thing to tell you. I knew them both real well and they were both so nice. Richie was so gentle. He really cared about people. He won all these honors in sports and he was involved in school politics, but it never went to his head.

“Elaine was like Richie. I remember in our junior year we both ran for prom queen. I know Elaine wanted very much to win, but I was named queen. She was so happy for me, even though she was disappointed for herself.”

The coffee was ready and she went to the sink and poured Shindler a cup.

“Do you know a girl named Esther Freemont?” Shindler asked. Alice looked surprised.

“Yes, I do. Is Esther…? She isn’t involved, is she?”

“No. I just wanted to know if you knew her.”

“Well, I know her in the sense that we go to the same school, but she isn’t a friend,” Alice said with a hint of distaste.

“What’s Esther like?”

“I…I really don’t know. She isn’t too bright. She hangs around with a wild crowd.”

“The Cobras?” Shindler interrupted. Alice nodded.

“She…I hear that she’s, uh, free. If you know what I mean,” Alice said blushing. “But I really don’t know her that well,” she added hastily.

Shindler changed the subject and they discussed Richie and Elaine some more. The time passed quickly and Shindler realized that it was getting late. He made a mental note to leave the interviewing of pretty girls to detectives with more self-control.

“Thank you for taking the time to talk to me, Miss Fay,” Shindler said, rising. “If you think of anything that you think might help give me a call.”

He handed her his card and she placed it by the kitchen phone.

“You know, that’s funny,” she said as she turned. “I just remembered that Esther Freemont was at the party I threw the evening that Richie and Elaine were killed.”

Shindler stopped.

“I thought you said that she wasn’t a close friend.”

“She’s not. She crashed. She and the Coolidge brothers and someone else. I remember because of the fight.”

“What fight?”

“It was pretty frightening. Tommy, my boyfriend, got mad because they had crashed. He tried to throw Billy Coolidge out and there was a fight. Billy had a knife. We were lucky that no one was hurt seriously.”

“What kind of knife?”

“It was a switchblade, I think. One of Tommy’s brother’s friends hit him and he pulled it out. We stopped it after that.”

“You mentioned a brother.”

“Bobby Coolidge. He was fighting too.”

“Why do you think they came to the party if they weren’t invited?”

“I don’t know. To cause trouble probably. Billy always has a chip on his shoulder. His brother isn’t as bad, but I really don’t like either of them.”

“Do you remember when they left the party?”

“Not really. I know it was dark and…No, wait. I do too know. Tommy got knocked down and he smashed his watch and broke it. I remember we all talked about it, because it was a new watch and he had gotten it as a birthday present. He was very angry. Anyway, the watch stopped at ten-twenty.”

Shindler thought that over. There had been a police report of an interview with some boys who had seen Elaine and Richie when they left the show. The movies had let out at about eleven-fifteen. If Esther and her friends had driven downtown after stealing the wine, they would be in the downtown area near eleven-thirty. It was possible.

“Thank you for the help, Miss Fay. Would you do me a favor and write down what you just told me and mail it to my office?”

“Certainly. Do you think it’s important?”

“I don’t know, but it could be.”

George DeBlasio had been a juvenile counselor for fifteen years. He first met Roy Shindler when Shindler was a patrolman. He had seen Shindler often during his first few years on the force and less often after he had become a detective, but the two got together for coffee whenever Shindler was in the neighborhood of the juvenile center, which housed juvenile detention, the juvenile court and the counselors’ offices.

DeBlasio was in his early fifties. His hair was snow white and thinning and he had a narrow, angular face. His office was one of several identical cubicles that lined a long hallway set aside for the counselors. He sat on one side of a government-issue metal desk and Shindler sat on the other. The door was locked and DeBlasio addressed Shindler in conspiratorial undertones as he slid two folders across the desk to him.

“You know, I shouldn’t be doing this. These files are supposed to be sealed.”

“I appreciate it, George, and I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important.”

George grunted and leaned back as Shindler read through the files.

“You know, I was their counselor for a while.”

“The Coolidges?” Shindler asked, looking up.

“For a year before they turned eighteen. Billy was a rough customer. I took an active dislike to him.”

“Why was that?”

“There was just something about him. The other one, Bobby, was more human. I guess that was it. Billy was a cold fish. No moral setup. He operated on pleasure-pain principles. If it hurt him, it was bad. If it felt good, it was good.

“I think the first time I worked with him was when he was brought in for a rampage at school. He beat up three kids in the course of one morning. Really brutal stuff. He had been drinking and the judge just gave him a talking to and let him go, because no one was seriously hurt, but that was no thanks to Billy.

“Anyway, I was assigned as counselor, but I couldn’t reach him. He showed no remorse. The only emotional reaction was his anger at the boys for telling on him.”

“What about the other boy, Bobby?”

“He’s a little different. I think he would turn out okay if he had half a chance. Of course, he doesn’t. Father died when they were young. Mother’s an alcoholic. Bobby is bright. So is Billy, for that matter. But they don’t apply themselves in school.”

“What was Bobby’s problem?”

“Also fighting. He beat up a banker’s son at school. The kid had it coming, but the father made a stink. The banker’s kid had made some remark about Bobby’s clothes. He told me that his mother had been drunk and he had washed them himself. He admitted, in an indirect way, that he was jealous of the other boy’s clothes.”

“You mean he disliked the other boy for being rich?”

“That was Billy’s favorite theme. He’s in a juvenile gang, you know. It’s called the Cobras. I would get him talking about the gang and you couldn’t stop him. He felt that the gang membership gave him status. He told me that he had earned his membership and that made him better than the kids at school who were rich only because of their parents. They both resent their parents. They feel that the father somehow betrayed them by dying and leaving them to fend for themselves.”

“Have Billy or Bobby ever gotten into trouble for using a knife?”

George thought for a moment.

“Not that I can recall.”

“George, do you mind if I keep these files for a day? I want to study them and I don’t have the time now.”

“I shouldn’t, but go ahead. Just don’t get caught. I’d be in real trouble if anyone found out.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll have them back to you by tomorrow.”

“This is important, huh?”

“Very. I’d tell you about it if I could, but I want to be sure before I accuse anyone.”

“See you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

“I’ll admit it’s a possibility,” Harvey said.

“Then you agree that I should bring them in for questioning?”

Marcus thumbed through the stack of papers that Shindler had put on his desk forty-five minutes ago. They contained police reports, notes from juvenile records and a psychiatric profile that had been done on William Ray Coolidge. The stack of papers painted a picture of two alienated, low-income juveniles who harbored a deep resentment against a society with which they could not cope. Shindler thought that he saw a pattern.

“They crash the party to see how the other half lives. They are jealous of these kids. One of the boys I talked to said he thought that Billy might even have a crush on Alice Fay, the girl who threw the party.

“Then, they’re beaten up and humiliated by the very people they despise. They get drunk. Later, they run into Walters and Murray. They know them from school. They see two perfect representatives of the very social class they hate.”

“Nice theory. But you have nothing to connect the Coolidges with the killings.”

“Esther Freemont’s glasses.”

Marcus shook his head.

“Not enough. According to her, she didn’t even have them on the evening of the crime.”

“She’s lying. I know it.”

“But you have to prove it. Only don’t go off half-cocked to the D.A. until you can.”

“What about questioning the Coolidges?”

Marcus looked down at the reports again.

“All right, let’s bring them in.”

Shindler had developed a mental image of Billy Coolidge and he was surprised at how accurate it was. The thing that surprised him most was the physical reaction the boy produced in him. There was something there that repelled him. The boy was good looking in an almost effeminate way. His lips were too thick and they curled naturally into a sneer. The hair was thick with grease. Whenever he saw one of these punks with their slicked-back hair and black leather jackets, he felt a slow hate. They stood for too many things that he did not.

“Have a seat, Billy,” Shindler said, motioning to a wooden chair on the other side of a wooden table. Shindler was seated in a comfortable chair on the far side of the small, bare interrogation room.

Billy took a cautious look around. There was nothing to rest his eyes on except Shindler, so he stopped there. His brother had been taken to a room on another floor by a policeman as big as the one who was standing behind him. There did not seem to be much he could do, so he looked at Shindler.

“What is this all about?” he asked.

“I’d like to have a talk with you,” Shindler replied.

“Well, I don’t want to talk to you. So let me go, or let me call a lawyer.”

“You don’t need a lawyer, son. All I want you to do is answer a few questions.”

“About what?”

“Sit down, first,” Shindler said in a voice still calm.

“I don’t want to sit down and I’m not answering any questions. Now, let me out.”

The defiant tone. The scared, defiant look. Like Nazis. Shindler hated them. He nodded and the big policeman twisted the boy’s arm behind him and sat him down.

“Listen to me, asshole,” he whispered, “when Detective Shindler asks you to do something, you do it. Do you understand?”

Billy groaned and writhed in the big man’s grasp. He gasped out an “okay” and grunted with relief when he was released. He rubbed his shoulder and cast a frightened look behind him. He was scared now. That was good.

“Would you like a cigarette?” Shindler offered. Billy shook his head and Shindler lit one for himself.

“You were born in Portsmouth, weren’t you?”

“You know that shit from my records, so why ask?”

The policeman took a step forward and Billy swiveled his head to watch him. Shindler raised his hand.

“All right. Yeah. I was born in Portsmouth. So what?”

“You and your brother have been pretty much on your own since your father died, haven’t you?”

“I guess,” Billy replied grudgingly.

“Are you working now?”

“You know I’m working at McNary Esso.”

He was sulking. He had turned away from Shindler so that his profile was to him and his eyes were on the floor.

“Do you like working at McNary’s?”

“What are you? Some kind of social worker? I want out of here and I’m not answering any more questions.”

“Not even about what you were doing on the evening of Friday, November twenty-fifth?”

Uncertainty. Coolidge cocked his head and looked at Shindler.

“What’s that?”

“Last November twenty-fifth. The Friday after Thanksgiving.”

“How the fuck should I know what I was doing then. That’s six months ago.”

“Maybe I can help you. You had a little fight at Alice Fay’s house. Do you remember that?”

“I don’t remember nothing.”

“Now you’re being stupid, Billy. We have a dozen eyewitnesses who will swear under oath that you had a fight with Tommy Cooper, his brother and some other boys that night.”

“Did that son of a bitch Cooper swear out a complaint on me?”

“No one has sworn out a complaint. We just want to know what happened that night.”

“It was Cooper’s fault. They tried to throw us out. I was just defending myself.”

“With a knife?”

That stopped him, Shindler thought. He doesn’t know what we know.

“Okay, so I had a knife. That fat bastard that hit me had a broken bottle, so I pulled my knife.”

“Do you have the knife now?”

“The knife? No, I lost the knife.”

“That’s too bad. Where did you lose it?”

“I don’t know. I just lost it.”

“When?”

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“What did you do after you left Alice Fay’s house?”

“I don’t know. Cruised around, I guess.”

“Who was with you?”

“You know who was with me. You got a dozen eyewitnesses.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

He clammed up again, half turning from Shindler and refocusing on the floor.

“How soon after you left Alice’s house did you cop the wine?”

“Who said I took some wine?”

“We had a long talk with Esther Freemont.”

“Then you know everything, so why waste my time?”

“I like your company.”

Coolidge laughed suddenly.

“You must think I’m really stupid. You expect me to come in here and just admit I stole something. Why don’t you just give me the key to the jail so I can lock myself up, too?”

“We don’t care about the wine, Billy. We care about what happened later.”

“Later?”

“After you and Bobby and Esther drank the wine.”

“Nothing happened later. What are you talking about?”

“You just tell me what you did after you drank the wine and you can go home.”

Coolidge eyed Shindler suspiciously. When he answered, he answered in a slow, even tone. The anger and outrage had disappeared from his voice.

“Why don’t you tell me what you think I did after we supposedly drank this wine.”

“That’s not the way we work things around here, Billy. Now I asked you a question and I want an answer.”

Coolidge was staring at Shindler. His eyes were on Shindler’s eyes. Shindler knew that this was high chess. Coolidge was straining to read his mind. Trying to figure out the move that would end the game for him, knowing that the wrong move would be fatal.

Then, Coolidge smiled and relaxed.

“Sure. Why not. You promise none of us will get in any trouble over…Well, let’s say there was some wine. No one would get in trouble over that, would he?”

“No one will get in any trouble over the wine,” Shindler said.

“Okay. Say, I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time. It’s just that I’ve been rousted by the cops before and I don’t like it.

“About afterwards. We just sat on a side street and drank the wine. There was a couple of bottles, ’cause we had some in the car already. Then Esther got blotto and we took her home. That’s all.”

“Where was this side street?”

“I don’t remember. It was a couple of blocks from the grocery store where I took the wine. That’s over by Lake and Grant.”

“So you drank some wine and Esther got drunk and you took her straight home.”

“Not straight home. I think we cruised a little downtown. But Esther was feeling pretty bad, so we didn’t stay downtown long.”

“I don’t suppose you remember the hour you were downtown?”

“Sorry, I can’t help you there.”

“We know it didn’t happen that way, Billy.”

“What do you mean? I just told you what happened.”

“I’m afraid you left something out. Think hard.”

Coolidge looked at Shindler. A little of the cool was fading, but the veneer was still there.

“I didn’t leave anything out. We drank the wine, cruised downtown and took Esther home.”

“You left out the park.”

“What park?”

“Lookout Park.”

“What are you talking about? We didn’t go to Lookout Park.”

He was nervous now. There was strain in his voice. Shindler could sense it.

“You can stop pretending, Billy. We found Esther Freemont’s glasses at the park. We know you were there that night.”

Shindler stared at Coolidge. The boy’s eyes were bright with fear and Shindler sensed something alien and hideous in their depth.

“I wasn’t in the park that night,” Coolidge insisted. Coolidge’s breathing had become more rapid and the boy was constantly shifting in his seat.

“You were there, Billy. Telling us about it will make it easier on you.”

“Easier for what? I didn’t do anything and I wasn’t in the park.”

“Did you know Richie Walters and Elaine Murray, Billy?”

Coolidge’s mouth hung open and he stared wide-eyed at the detective.

“Is that what this is all about? You think…I want out of here. Now.”

His voice had risen to a scream.

“You ain’t gonna make me guilty of that. Let me out.”

“I’ll let you out, you little scumbag, when you tell me the truth,” Shindler said in a voice tight with hate. “When you tell me how you stabbed that poor boy and gang-fucked that girl.”

Shindler was standing. His body quivered and he moved slowly toward Coolidge. The boy turned to the policeman with a silent plea for help. His hands were thrust forward, palms out, as if to ward off some invisible blow.

The sight of the boy before him filled Shindler with rage. He could see the girl, naked, pleading in terror for her life. He wanted to smash, to hit. The boy was yelling something. The policeman was looking at Shindler with alarm. Shindler realized where he was. His hand was shaking uncontrollably. He opened the door and left the room.

There was a men’s room in the hallway. He plunged into it. He leaned against the wall. His body shook. His breathing was shallow. The face in the wall mirror frightened him. It was not his face. It was possessed of emotions as alien to him as the acts of the boy. It was the face of the primeval hunter. The killer in man.

He splashed himself with cold water. He sat on a folding chair. Slowly, he gained control. Harvey was on the second floor. He got up and walked downstairs.

Marcus came out at his knock. He looked at Shindler uncertainly.

“What happened?”

Shindler shook his head.

“I lost my temper. It’s okay now. Are you getting anywhere?”

“Lost your temper? What do you mean?” Marcus asked, concerned. He did not like Shindler’s intense interest in the case. He considered it unhealthy and unprofessional.

“It was nothing. How are you doing?”

“I don’t think the kid is involved, Roy.”

“Not involved?”

“He’s been polite and cooperative. He answers all the questions. And he tells the same story as the Freemont girl.”

“You’re wrong, Harvey. You have to be. You didn’t see that little punk. They invented a cover story, that’s all.”

“Or they are telling the truth.”

“No, damn it. It’s them. I know it.”

“Roy, these feelings are all subjective. You don’t have a single piece of evidence tying these boys to the killings. If you want to know, I think you are getting personally involved in this case and it is affecting your judgment. I’m going to release Bobby Coolidge and I think you should do the same with his brother.”

That evening Shindler ate a TV dinner and drank a bottle of beer. Then he took off his shoes and tie and stretched out, still dressed, on his bed. He placed his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. He noticed a tiny crack in the ceiling plaster and traced it with his eye. A car hummed by outside. He closed his eyes and listened to his breathing.

Sometimes he felt that he was leaving his sanity behind. Moving so slowly into the world of the mad that he would not notice until it was too late. It was not healthy to encounter violent death so frequently. When death became part of each day, it started to lose its meaning. The next step was for life to lose its value.

Recently he had investigated the murder of a grocer who had been brutally beaten by two men. The face had been obliterated. The grocer had been a good family man with two beautiful children. Shindler had calmly directed the investigation at the scene. He had posed the body for pictures with bored detachment. He had conducted the interviews in a bored monotone. The death had meant nothing to him. When he realized this, hours later, it had shaken him.

The Murray-Walters case was a spiritual lifeline. He was grateful for a death that had awakened something human in him. Something that Harvey suggested was making it impossible for him to continue with the investigation.

He felt lost. Was that the choice? Did feeling lead to failure? Did success have to be purchased with a loss of human qualities? Were his emotions blinding him to the truth?

Harvey had talked to him for a long time after they had let the Coolidges go. He had tried to convince him that he should forget them. That the truth lay elsewhere. Shindler did not buy that. Somewhere there was a key. He had never been this sure about a case. Those glasses. The personalities. The knife. The fight on the same evening. There were too many coincidences.

Shindler looked at his watch. He had been lying in the dark for an hour. Esther Freemont. He could see her large brown eyes. Doe’s eyes. Soft eyes. An animal at bay. She was not made of the same stuff as the Coolidges. She was soft. She would bend to his will. He could break her if she was lying. He closed his eyes and thought about it. He would see her in the morning.

Shindler had the plan worked out by the time he arrived at Esther’s house. The day was sunny and warm. There were no clouds in the sky. He told Esther’s mother that he wanted to ask her some more questions about the glasses and that he would bring her home shortly.

Esther went with him reluctantly. She never relaxed. Her eyes moved constantly. Her hands would not keep still. Shindler approved. He wanted her nervous and without reserves, so that there would be nothing there but truth when the moment came.

Shindler engaged Esther in small talk so that she would not notice that they were not headed toward the station house. He headed up Monroe Boulevard and he noticed her looking out the window uncertainly.

“This isn’t the way downtown.”

“I wanted to show you where we found the glasses.”

“Are we going to the park?”

Shindler nodded.

“To where Richie…?”

“To where we found the glasses.”

“I don’t want to go there,” she said suddenly. Shindler noticed that she was gripping the seat hard enough to make her knuckles turn white.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I really don’t want to go up there. Please, Mr. Shindler. It scares me.”

“It shouldn’t frighten you, Esther. The place doesn’t look the same anymore. I’ll take you to the meadow where we found Richie. You’ll see. You would never know that someone died there.”

She did not say anything more and Shindler continued until he reached the spot where the glasses had been found.

“Does this look familiar, Esther?”

She looked out of the car window. Shindler got out and walked over to the exact spot. Esther did not follow.

“Come on. Take a look.”

“I told you before, I wasn’t here. I don’t know why you brought me here.”

“Just to see the place, Esther. I thought that you might be curious to see where we found your glasses.”

She turned away and bit her lip. Shindler got back in the car and headed up the road to the meadow.

“I’m going to make one more stop. Then we’ll go down to the station.”

“Don’t take me there. Please,” she begged in a voice tinged with panic.

“I want to check something, Esther. You can wait in the car.”

He parked the car at the end of the dirt road and looked around. The meadow had not changed. It had been peaceful even on the day of the murder. The violence had been added and subtracted. Shindler got out of the car and walked to the spot where the car had been. There was no trace of it. He waited a while for Esther to see whatever phantoms remained. Then he got back in his car. Esther was quiet on the trip to the station.

Shindler parked in the police garage. The garage was in the basement of the police station. They took the elevator up to the third floor and he brought her to the same room where he had questioned Billy Coolidge. This morning, before he picked her up, he had put the photograph in the small drawer in the wooden desk.

The matron tried to get Esther to relax. She only made Esther more nervous with her attentions. Shindler could smell the fear in Esther. He had owned a pet rabbit when he was a boy. The rabbit had never adjusted to the cage. It would run round and round, darting into the mesh, trying to claw through. Esther’s eyes reminded him of the rabbit’s. They never looked at him. They darted everywhere, searching for an exit.

“You didn’t tell me the whole truth the last time we talked, Esther.”

“What do you mean?” she asked cautiously. She did not trust this soft-spoken thin man. There was too much of the deceiver below his surface.

“You didn’t tell me about what happened at Alice Fay’s house.”

“I didn’t do anything,” she answered quickly.

“No. But Billy and Bobby did. Tell me what they did.”

Esther stared away from Shindler at the floor.

“They fought,” she said in a low voice.

“I didn’t hear you,” Shindler said.

“They fought,” she said louder. “I told them to leave, honest. I didn’t want them fighting. I just wanted to see the house.”

“You didn’t tell me how they fought.”

Esther looked confused.

“What did Billy use, Esther?”

Esther’s eyes widened.

“What did Billy use?” Shindler repeated.

“A…a knife,” she said so quietly that her voice was like the tick of a clock in another room.

“That’s right. And you held that back, didn’t you?”

“No. Honest. I just…I didn’t know it would be important.”

“Not important, Esther? Did you know that Richie Walters was stabbed twenty times. Twenty different times. And you didn’t think it was important that Billy Coolidge had a knife?”

“Well, we didn’t go up there.”

“Up where?”

“To the park.”

“How do you know? You say you can’t remember what you did.”

“I just know.”

“You just know,” Shindler mimicked. Esther bit her lip.

“My mamma knows,” she said suddenly, and with relief, as if she had grasped a lifeline.

“Wrong, Esther. All your mother can say is that you came home late and drunk. Richie was killed between twelve and two.”

Esther looked down again. Shindler let her sit in silence for a moment. His eyes drifted toward the desk drawer. He could see the photograph through the wood and manila. It burned there, burning him with its fire. Any pity he might have had for Esther Freemont turned to ash. The picture dried him out and made him like cold stone.

“Tell me about the park, Esther.”

“I wasn’t in the park.”

“How do you know if you can’t remember?”

“That’s what I mean. I can’t remember. Please, can’t I go home?”

“Richie and Elaine can’t go home, Esther. You know that, don’t you?”

“Don’t talk like that, please, Mr. Shindler. It scares me.”

“You don’t like to think about Richie and Elaine, do you?”

She shook her head.

“Billy hated them, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“You aren’t telling me the truth, Esther. Billy hates rich people. He envies them. I know. I’ve talked to enough people to know what goes on in Billy Coolidge’s head. Now answer me. Billy hated rich people, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Shindler said, leaning back. “Now we are getting somewhere. Who did Billy hate, Esther?”

She wished he would stop saying her name. He made it sound dirty. Like it was scum in a gutter pool. She could feel tears coming.

“Who?” Shindler asked in a voice that cut to her nerve.

“Please, I don’t know. Just the rich kids. He didn’t like Tommy Cooper. I don’t know. He didn’t talk to me that much.”

“You were with him that night.”

“No. I was with Roger…Hessey. My boyfriend. But we had a fight at the party and he left me. That’s why I was with Billy.”

“And you can’t remember the park?”

“I can’t. The last thing I remember is hazy. It’s downtown. I think we were cruising.”

“Esther, I’m going to let you go, but I want to show you something first. Then I’ll take you home.”

She did not know how to take it. Whether to believe him. Going home. Out of this room. She relaxed like a balloon when the air is let out, deflating, shoulders sagging.

Shindler opened the desk drawer and drew out the manila envelope. He pulled the large color photograph out of the envelope face down, so Esther could not see. Esther leaned forward out of curiosity. When her eyes were focused on the back of the print, he turned the picture face up and leaned back. He could see the scene registering. Esther made a choking sound. Then she began to scream. He had not expected that. In retrospect, he realized that he should have.

She was standing and still screaming. Her hands before her face, half-curled, forming tiny claws. He watched her with detached interest. A lab specimen.

She could not look away from the picture and she could not stop screaming. The matron gave him a peculiar look when she helped Esther out of the room. People were looking down the corridor.

Shindler was suddenly aware that he had caused the screams. It began to dawn on him that his actions had been responsible for the girl’s hysterics. His composure began to crumble. People were looking in at him. Still he did not move. He tried to think about the situation in terms of logic. He had done nothing wrong. This girl and those two boys were responsible. They had butchered two beautiful children. If Esther had to suffer so that the truth could be revealed, it was sad but necessary.

Someone asked if he was okay. He did not acknowledge him. There was a pitcher and water glass on the desk. He took a slow drink of water and contemplated the picture. He felt the same anger he had felt when he saw the boy for the first time.

The picture was of the body full length on the rubber sheet just before it had been taken from the scene. The angle showed the full facial damage. It had been cruel to show it to Esther, but Shindler was willing to do anything to find the people who had killed Richie Walters.

“I am taking you off this case, Roy. That is my decision,” Captain Webster said. Shindler sat rigid, his mouth clamped shut and his eyes staring directly into the captain’s. He did not trust himself to speak.

“I don’t know what got into you with that girl. You’re lucky if she doesn’t bring a suit against you.”

“Captain, I…I am certain that Esther Freemont is the key to the Murray-Walters murders.”

“I know what you think. I had a long talk with Harvey Marcus before I called you in here. Now, damn it, Roy, I think you are one of the best detectives I have. But this is not the Gestapo. I can’t have you torturing people to break cases. In no time we would be as bad as the people we are trying to catch.

“Besides, I think that you are way off on this one. Harvey thinks that this obsession that you have about the Coolidge brothers is preventing you from investigating this case effectively. He also thinks that your preoccupation with the case is affecting your other work. So I am taking you off of it.”

“Because I showed her the picture?”

“Haven’t you heard what I have been saying? The picture would have been enough. She’s a sixteen-year-old-girl, Roy. But that isn’t why you are off. I have reviewed the file and I have talked with several other people in homicide. I do not think that it is in the best interest of the department to have you continue on this case.”

Shindler took a deep breath.

“Who is getting the case?”

“I’m giving the file to Doug Cutler, but I am telling him to put it on inactive status.”

“Inactive…? Captain, that’s like closing the case.”

“I told you that I had reviewed the file. I don’t think that a continuing investigation is going to solve this case.”

Roy Shindler went home to bed. He did not sleep. He lit a cigarette and smoked in bed. He was so tired. He was so sick. The sickness was inside of him.

After a few hours, Roy sat up and called Mr. Walters at his office. He used to go to the Walters’ home when something happened to tell them firsthand, but he had stopped because of Mrs. Walters. She always seemed to pull into herself when he came.

Mr. Walters was different. He had hardened since November. He kept in close contact with Roy, anxious to learn every detail of the investigation. Mr. Walters was in and said he would be glad to see Roy. Roy dressed and drove downtown.

“I wanted to tell you in person. They put the case on inactive status.”

“You mean they closed the file?” Norman Walters asked incredulously.

“It amounts to the same thing. The file is still open, but no one is actively working on it.”

“But you told me that you were on to something. That you thought that you knew who…who killed Richie.”

“I think I do, but the department disagrees. I have been taken off of the case.”

Mr. Walters stared at Shindler.

“They took you off the case. Who did that? I’m not without influence, Roy. Give me the names and I’ll have you back on it by tomorrow.”

Roy shook his head.

“That’s not the way to do it. Even if you could get me reassigned, there would be so much resentment that I wouldn’t be able to do my job.”

“But I could get the Commissioner to order you back on it.”

“I’m not so sure you could. And I know what kind of bad feelings would result.”

“Then it’s all over,” Walters said dejectedly. “My boy is dead and no one will ever pay for it.”

“No, it’s not all over, Mr. Walters. It will never be over as far as I am concerned. I’ll let this die down for a while. I still have access to the file and I can keep track of the investigation. What I do in my spare time is my own business. No, it’s not over, Mr. Walters.”