The Wrong Quarry (16 page)

“Thank you for putting up with this imposition,” I said, giving him a businesslike smile.

Our voices echoed a little in the auditorium.

“Not at all,” he said. “I am pleased to see some movement on this matter. We were all just starting to give up hope.”

He had an oblong, well-lined face with regular features, his head large for his slender frame. His eyes were gray and languid behind dark-frame glasses and his steel-gray hair was immaculately cut and combed. He wore a black sweater over a gray shirt with a red bow tie; his darker gray slacks had a nice crease, and he was in black slippers.

Throughout our brief interview, he clasped his hands in front of his chest, fingers entwined, and made his points emphatically, even when emphasis wasn’t required, as if he were giving me pointers on my performance.

“Will you be taking notes, Mr. Quarry?”

“No, I’ll make my notes after we talk. Anyway, I don’t intend to quote you by name.”

“Ah. Merely as a source. I see. That’s actually a relief.”

“I thought it might be. I’ll be asking some questions that require opinions, and hope you will express frankly any suspicions or theories you might have. Without risk of putting yourself in a compromising position.”

“All right. I like the sound of that. Have you the Stockwell family’s by-their-leave to pursue this line of inquiry?”

“Jenny Stockwell is helping me. She arranged an interview with her brother Lawrence earlier today. Her father has declined to speak to me.”

He nodded. “Yes. That is no surprise. By all accounts, the elder Stockwell is devastated, and who could blame him?”

“Was Candy the talented girl everyone says she was?”

“Very gifted. Her sophomore year she was excellent in
Skin of Our Teeth.
The last two years we’ve done musicals in conjunction with swing choir, and she nabbed leads in both
—Godspell
and
Pippin.”

“You’re involved in helping prepare some of the girls for beauty pageant competition?”

“Yes. It’s a fairly barbaric, painfully out-of-date tradition, but I’m afraid it’s terribly popular in Stockwell, and when in Rome....”

“So you know Roger Vale, then?”

“I know Roger. He’s very gifted.”

“You’ve worked with him?”

“Yes, a consummate professional. And I will save you the trouble of asking your next question—no, I do
not
believe he had anything to do with Candace’s disappearance. As much as I appreciate how the Stockwell family supports the arts in this community, I believe they...particularly Clarence...are bogged down in old attitudes. They have a prejudice toward Roger that fogs their judgment.”

“You mean, because he’s gay.”

He raised his chin and looked down his nose at me. “I suppose he
might
be gay, but I can tell you flatly, in dealing with him, many times, I have to say it never came up.”

Sometimes a straight line is just too easy.

“But,” I said, “you assume that
they
assume he’s gay.”

“That’s fair. That
is
fair. You might find this difficult to believe, but I deal with the same prejudice. Just because I am involved in the theater arts. Actually, I am a happily and long-married man. Ethel is head librarian at the Stockwell Library.”

“Congratulations. Do you think it’s possible that Candy is a runaway?”

Hands still clasped, he pondered. “I don’t believe so. We were fairly close, Candace and I. I was helping her explore various college options, seeking programs that might serve
all
of her gifts—dance, vocal music and of course drama. She never gave the slightest indication that she might be considering running off to try for Broadway or film. She was smarter than that. She was many things, our Candace, but stupid was not one of them.”

“If she was murdered, who might have done it?”

The languid eyes flared suddenly.
“Must
it have been someone local? Couldn’t she have been spirited off by some maniac who saw the lovely girl and simply had to have her?”

“Just some crazy killer drifting around America, looking for high school girls to kidnap and kill.”

“And
more,
Mr. Quarry. And more. What debauchery that poor child may have suffered before facing a tragic death boggles. The heights of the human soul have no ceiling, and the lows of its depravity no floor.”

“Who said that, Shakespeare?”

“No, Mr. Quarry,” he said, and smiled like a pixie. “I did. Just now.”

Miss Hurlbutt, the cheerleading coach, sat with me in the gymnasium on the first row of the bleachers. She was in a yellow Yellow Jacket sweatshirt and black sweatpants, as if she’d just come from practice. The ponytailed bottle blonde was apple-cheeked and about forty, with her weight just starting to be a problem. But with that dimpled smile, who gave a shit?

She shook her head, watching Sally’s exit.
“There’s
a waste.”

“Pardon?”

“Ever see that kid dance, that Sally? She’s a natural. But I have had
zero
luck recruiting her for cheer. I hate seeing potential go unrealized. So what can I do you for?”

I gave her the standard spiel, and again invoked Jenny Stockwell as a reference.

“Listen,” she said, “Candy was a hard worker. This talk about her being a stuck-up little bitch, buncha bull. She interacted well with the other girls. Team player.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any room for a diva in cheerleading.”

“You got that right. And I admired Candy for that, because she was a star, if this school ever had one. Best actress HSSH ever saw, fantastic soloist in swing choir, and she stole every darn recital out at Vale Dance Studio.”

“You know Roger Vale?”

She nodded. “Mr. Roger has lent a hand helping my girls, the ones who’re prepping for pageants. Oh, I know it’s a bunch of sexist baloney, but it’s a way a girl can get some confidence ...and a nice scholarship.”

“Candy Stockwell didn’t need a nice scholarship.”

“That’s for dang sure. But she needed
something,
or else she wouldn’t have participated, would she?”

“What do you mean, Miss Hurlbutt?”

“Make it Judy, please. And I’ll take the liberty of calling you, Jack...Jack. Any young beauty who tries as hard, works as hard as Candy, has self-esteem issues.”

“Why the hell
would
she, Judy?”

“You got me by the short-and-you-know-whats. Look at some of these pretty girls who won’t eat, or when they do, they puke, and wind up looking like concentration camp victims. Some of the prettiest, most talented girls have the lowest self-esteem, Jack. I think that’s probably why Candy...well, got around.”

“People I’ve talked to have called her a slut.”

“That’s of course cruel, and maybe an exaggeration.”

Maybe.

I said, “What’s it like, working with Roger Vale?”

“He’s a dream. Strictly professional, and Mr. Roger has more talent in his little pinkie than me or anybody else on the HSSH staff.”

“The Stockwells—Clarence and his son Lawrence, anyway— don’t share your high opinion of Vale. They think he murdered Candy.”

Her cheerful persona vanished. She seemed genuinely sorrowful, shaking her head as she said, “It’s a shame, a damn shame. Town is so lucky to have that family. But the old man, old Clarence, he’s grasping at straws, trying to make sense out of a tragedy.”

“You don’t think Candy might be a runaway?”

“No. She was on a path to college. We talked about that, many times. No. I’m afraid something terrible did happen to her.”

“But not at the hands of Roger Vale?”

“That gentle soul? No. I would imagine it’s his sexual orientation that sends them down that dark path. He doesn’t flaunt it, you know. Oh, yes, he can be a little...effeminate.”

“No worse than Paul Lynde.”

That made her chuckle and shrug in a you-got-me-there fashion. “I mean, Roger keeps to himself. If he’s had any affairs here in town, he’s been awful discreet. He might go out of town for his social life, for all I know. But it’s a terrible, judgmental thing he’s suffering.”

“You mean, he’d have been better off marrying a librarian.”

She laughed out loud at that one. “You have a dry sense of humor, Jack. How long are you in town?”

“Not long enough,” I said with a smile, and we passed like ships in the night, or anyway the gym.

Mr. Brady—the fortyish Lincoln-esque history teacher who was the advisor on the school newspaper—echoed the comments of Mr. Dennis and Miss Hurlbutt, as we sat in student chairs in his classroom.

But he added, “Candy was a very good writer. Extremely creative. You know, her aunt is talented, too—a painter, a musician, and she’s in my writing group.”

“You’re a member?”

“No, I’m sort of the...ringleader, or maybe
ringmaster.
But this notion of Mr. Vale being Candy’s murderer...and course, where is the
body?
...is fueled by this diary that the elder Stockwell so cruelly allowed to be excerpted in the local press. Salacious material that had to be censored to some degree, but had Mr. Vale ever been brought to trial locally, think how poisoned the jury pool would be.”

“I think those diary entries do play a big role.”

“Without a doubt. And they were almost certainly fantasies of hers put to paper, and as I say, she was a very gifted young writer. The assumption of Mr. Vale’s guilt, of a crime that hasn’t been demonstrated to have
occurred,
is an outrageous miscarriage of justice.”

“Well, Vale hasn’t been arrested. And he doesn’t even seem to have been convicted in the court of public opinion. Poisoned jury pool maybe, Mr. Brady, but a lot of parents who have girls taking dance lessons at his studio seem to have his back.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good indicator,” he said. “Whether they stick a knife in that back may well depend on which and how many of our Stockwell girls place well in the coming beauty pageants. This town is so obsessed by that antique display that they would have a kind word for Caligula, if he was an effective dance coach.”

The swing choir director, his heterosexuality clear after that lingering look at Sally’s skirt-swishing exit, continued with praise for Candy’s talent, and backed up the general high opinion of Roger Vale.

Mr. Jacobs was a small pale dark-haired man in a dark suit and dark tie, sitting sideways at his desk with me seated directly across from him. Around us was auditorium-style seating, indicating a choir of healthy size.

“Roger Vale has been so helpful to me,” Mr. Jacobs said, “I wouldn’t know where to start. Swing choir is relatively new at Stockwell High, Mr. Quarry, and I don’t know how much you know about it...?”

“I know nothing about it.”

“Well, it brings in elements of dance, and my college training did
not
include anything like that. Much more traditional, I’m afraid, and Mr. Vale has been a lifesaver. Very professional with the students—boys and girls, and I assure you his...lifestyle choice...did not manifest itself in the way he coached our young men. Who, as you might imagine, can be fairly shy about learning dance steps.”

“You don’t put any stock in the accusations made against Vale, by Clarence Stockwell, as Candy’s possible murderer?”

“I don’t. They
can’t
have it both ways—is ‘Mr. Roger’ some pervert because he’s gay? Or is he some mad sex fiend deflowering young girls? May I be frank, Mr. Quarry? Speak to you as one man to another. Frankly?”

“Please.”

“And you
assure
me I won’t be quoted?”

“Yes.”

He sighed, shook his head. “Candy was a stone fox. I was alone with her any number of times. Many times. I could have...well, I
could
have. I didn’t, I have a lovely young wife I’m madly in love with, but...my God, I would think about her at night, Candy... who wouldn’t want...”

“A piece of Candy?” You knew I’d get there.

He smiled humorlessly. “I’ve said too much. But she was the kind of beauty who could make a man crazy. Men
kill
over women who look like that. Who have that, that
well
of...passion.”

Was he
sure
that he...hadn’t?

“Anyway, I’m just saying that she gave a lot away to a host of stupid boys who didn’t deserve it. Somebody...some kid maybe, filled with hormonal lust and teenage angst...could have
lost
it, and killed her, over getting dumped.”

Some kid.

Or some married man.

Sally and I had agreed to meet by the front entrance at eight, but I was a little late. My appointment with Mr. Jacobs had been the last slotted, and ran over some. I found her just outside, smoking. The sky still promised rain and it was cold, but if a kid wanted a cigarette, a kid did that outside.

“I hate to see you doing that,” I said.

“What, smoking? Why?”

“It’s a terrible thing to do to such a nice body.”

“Aren’t you sweet? How did it go?”

We walked arm-in-arm toward her Mustang. I filled her in, more or less, especially how both Candy and Roger got high marks from everyone I’d spoken to.

We were at her car. She leaned against the driver’s-side door, blowing smoke at me impudently. I leaned on the vehicle behind me, a yellow Buick Turbo muscle car. Probably not a parent’s car. Somebody young and dumb who dug speed and bad mileage.

Otherwise, few cars remained in the lot, two or three pulling out now, beams cutting the night. Parents, teachers, and kids had mostly gone home.

“I listened to some of it,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Your meetings. I stood outside and eavesdropped, you know?”

“What did you do that for?”

“Because I’m a bad girl.” She blew a smoke ring at me. “Didn’t you know I was a bad girl?”

“I guessed.”

“I heard you say you’ve been hanging around with Candy’s Aunt Jenny.”

“She’s been helping.”

She put an ugly smirk on her pretty face. “A Stockwell, helping clear
Roger?
Doubt it.”

“Clarence and his boy Larry are the anti-Vale crowd. Jenny has an open mind.”

“Jenny has an open everything. Did you fuck her?”

“Hey.”