No Stone Unturned (25 page)

“You’re that girl reporter, aren’t you?” he asked when I identified myself.

“That’s right. I wanted to ask you some questions about Jordan Shaw, if you don’t mind.”

“Are you planning to twist what I say and make her look bad? Because if you are, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“Not at all, I promise. Judge Shaw has asked me to help investigate Jordan’s murder for her sake. I can have him call you, if you like.”

“Never mind,” he said. “I saw you talking to the judge and Mrs. Shaw the other night at the wake. What do you want to know?”

“For starters, can you tell me where you were last Friday night?”

There was a long silence on the line. Finally, Greg spoke.

“So it’s like that?” he chuckled. “This is about me, not Jordan. Well, I don’t have anything to hide. I was out at Blue Diamond Bar Friday from about nine thirty till one thirty when I went home to bed.”

“Did anyone see you there?” I asked.

He laughed. “About hundred and fifty people, I guess. And I woke my ma when I got home, so she can vouch for me.”

“You’re quite well prepared. Like a Boy Scout,” I said, flirting a little. I figured it might put him at ease. “If only everyone were as cooperative as you.”

“Any time you’d like to question me personally, I’m game.”

Okay, maybe I had gone too far.

“Can you tell me about Jordan?” I asked. “How well did you know her?”

“We were old friends. I’ve known her since grammar school,” he said, more sober now that the subject had turned back to Jordan Shaw. “Whoever did this to her should fry in the electric chair and then rot in hell. If I get my hands on him, I’ll kill him myself.”

“Did you ever date Jordan?” I asked abruptly, and I got a dial tone as an answer.

My film of Ginny’s body turned out to be grislier than I had remembered. In my haste to photograph the scene, I had paid little attention to the lighting, and the result was a grainy, ghostly look. Charlie Reese shook his head.

“How do you manage to focus a camera on a dead body?”

“It’s not like I make a habit of it,” I said. “And it wasn’t easy. I was sick in the sink.”

“Looks like a still life,” he said, though not as a joke.

“Do you know what the French call still lifes?” I asked. “
Nature morte
. Dead nature.”

“And that’s apropos of what?” he asked.

“Nothing. Just feeling philosophical.”

“Just showing off is more like it. So who do you think painted this scene?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I met a couple of men in Boston who might fit the bill, but I just don’t know.”

“What are you looking for?” asked Charlie. “What would wrap this up for you?”

“A car,” I said slowly, staring at Ginny White’s bloated body. “A poorly maintained car.”

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1960

“You’ve got to let me see Julio, Frank.”

“Forget it, Ellie. His lawyer doesn’t want anyone talking to him.”

“Please, Frank,” I said, using all my feminine wiles on my new chum. “I’ve played straight with you. Just give me ten minutes alone with him.”

“I appreciate the way you’ve written this thing, but I can’t. If our case against him gets thrown out because of some monkeyshines like this, I’m the one who’s got to answer to the public. And to Judge Shaw.”

“That’s not it. You’re afraid maybe the kid’s innocent and you’ll have to start over. Come on, Frank, you know there was another murder in Boston. Doesn’t that clear Julio?”

“Hell, no,” he said. “From what I understand, the White girl was killed Saturday evening or Sunday morning. That would have given Julio plenty of time to drive to Boston and back before I picked him up. Don’t forget, he disappeared for four days.”

“The kid trusts me. Maybe he’ll tell me what he saw that night.”

“What he saw was Jordan Shaw undressing. And when she caught him, he broke her neck and buried her body in the woods.”

“You’re burying your head in the sand, Frank. There are too many questions here. Don’t you think it’s important to know who those three men were who visited her that night?”

“I know who one of them was, and he’s cooling his heels in a cell downstairs right now. It’s a free country, Ellie. People have the right to go where they please, visit who they want. I don’t care if the Shriners threw a party in her room that night; I know I got the right man.”

I fought to maintain my calm, remembering Charlie Reese’s admonition on estranging the goodwill of the sheriff.

“Why don’t you talk to Jean Trent?” he offered. “We brought her in for accessory to murder, harboring a fugitive, and obstruction of justice.”

“She doesn’t know anything. Please, Frank. I promise you I won’t print a word of what he tells me.”

The sheriff thought about it, probably weighing the damage I could do to him with a negative article.

“Joe Murray is his lawyer,” he said finally, glaring at me. “You know what a pain in the neck he is. He’d get the Israelis to release Eichmann if they put too much starch in his shorts. I don’t want him to know I let you talk to Hernandez. Tell you what I’ll do: I’ll let you go downstairs to talk to Halvey—he’s sitting suicide watch in the cell next to the kid’s. See if you can stand five minutes with Halvey, then I’ll call him out of there and give you ten minutes with Julio.”

The Montgomery County Administration Building straddled the line between the Town of New Holland and the Town of Poole, northwest of the river, on Route 22. A three-story brick building, it housed jail cells in the basement, sheriff’s office on the ground floor, courtrooms on the second, and administrative offices on the third. I had cut my teeth in the old building when I began working for the
Republic
a couple of years before. From family court to county board meetings, I had spent my share of meaningless evenings doodling into my notepad. The local judges were known for leniency and an inclination toward probation. The accused’s families got to keep their husbands and sons, while the county probation officers surrendered gradually to the inconsequence of their efforts. The jail’s population consisted of Saturday-night brawlers, wife beaters, drunken drivers, and petty thieves. Once, an accused child molester tried to hang himself from a water pipe and was knocked unconscious when the pipe broke and clocked him on the head. He succeeded in flooding the cell and was roughed up in the yard by the other inmates for forcing them to evacuate the building on a cold day.

Julio was the most notorious criminal the Montgomery County Jail had seen in recent memory, and as such he occupied the VIP suite—the center cell in the block. Pat Halvey, a finger in his ear, was sitting in the next cell, leaning back against the wall on two legs of his chair, and didn’t hear me coming. When I called his name, the chair slid out from under him, and he crashed to the floor.

“Darn it, Ellie,” he said, picking himself up. “Why don’t you make some noise when you come into a room?”

A gale of laughter rose from the cellblock.

“What do you want, anyway?”

I glanced at Julio, who’d sat up on his bed in the next cell. He stared at me with dark, miserable eyes. I turned back to Halvey and asked him how his bowling game was coming along. That was all it took; he treated me to a dissertation on the new spin he’d been working on.

“What do you say we go bowling sometime, Ellie?” he asked. “I could teach you.”

“I don’t know, Pat. I’ve never seen your picture in the High Rollers’ column of the paper. Do I want to be seen bowling with a guy who’s never made the High Rollers?”

“You will soon, don’t worry about that. I’m saving up for a new Brunswick Black Beauty, and with the spin I’m working on . . .”

Frank Olney left me twisting for at least ten minutes before calling Halvey away.

“How are they treating you, Julio?” I asked the shadowy figure, once we were alone.

He didn’t speak. He just stared at me.

Invisible voices called out from the other dark cells: “Hey, spic, we’re gonna get you! You killed a white girl, spic. We’re gonna cut you into little Puerto Rican pieces!”

“Tell me what I can do for you,” I whispered, once the taunts had died down.

His head dropped into his hands, and I could tell he was sobbing.

“Tell me, Julio,” I said. “I know you didn’t do this. Let me help. What can I do for you?”

“You would help?” he asked finally, lifting his head and wiping his nose on his sleeve. He rose from the bed and approached the bars that separated us. “Would you talk to my mother?”

“Of course,” I said. “What do you want me to tell her?”

“Just tell her I’m okay. And . . .” He brought his face to the bars. “Tell her I’m innocent.”

“All right,” I said. “But I can do even more to help you. If you’d tell me where you hid the film, I could get you out of here.”

“I told you there isn’t any film!” he snapped, and turned away from the bars.

The voices returned, this time threatening me, the
spic lover
, with unspeakable acts of wickedness.

“The sheriff’s determined to hang this on you,” I said, still whispering. “And if I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t want to try my luck in front of a jury. You heard those guys,” I threw my head back to indicate the other inmates. “You can expect the same enlightened attitudes at your trial. They’re going to want someone to pay for what happened to Jordan, and you’re handy. So, please, tell me where the film is.”

“There is no film,” he repeated, more softly this time. Then he returned to his bed, lay down, and turned his back to me. I could see his shoulders shaking silently in the semidarkness.

“He tell you what you wanted to know?” asked the sheriff when I came out. I shook my head. “That doesn’t surprise me. He’s not going to help you, because he killed her.”

“Tell me, Frank,” I said, ignoring his gloating. “Did you ever find Jordan’s effects? What happened to her clothes? Her purse? Her keys?”

“No, we haven’t found any of that. My idea is Julio buried them somewhere or burned the whole lot. Why?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about her keys. Maybe her killer used them to get into her apartment in Boston.”

“Say, I’ll bet you’re right,” said Olney, leaning forward in his swivel chair. “Hernandez grabbed the keys, drove to Boston, and bashed in the roommate’s head.”