No Stone Unturned (26 page)

“Why, Frank? There’s no reason for him to go to Boston. And why would he cut that gash in Jordan’s pelvis?”

The sheriff’s eyes narrowed and grew dark. “I think it’s voodoo.
Santoría
, they call it in the islands. I’ve been studying up on it, Ellie, down to the library. And I think that’s the answer.”

I just stared at the sheriff dumbly, turned slowly, and walked out to my car.

I was stopped at a red light on Market Street just inside the city limits when I happened to glance in my rearview mirror. Idling behind me, purring a soft rumble, was Pukey Boyle’s maroon Hudson Hornet.

The sensation was an unsettling one, as I recalled my encounter with Glenda Whalen. When the light changed, I turned left to see if he would follow. I shifted my eyes from the road to the mirror and saw the shiny car swing into view. I tried a few more side streets, and the Hudson marked me at every turn, hanging back about thirty yards. As I approached the intersection of Franklin and Van Der Meer, the traffic light blinked to yellow. I eased up on the accelerator, letting the amber ripen, then gunned through a fresh red light, leaving Pukey Boyle and the maroon Hudson behind.

In late 1957, Don Czerulniak had used his influence—not to say his weight—to move the DA’s office to the top floor of the New Holland Bank Building. Erected in 1899, the ten-story edifice was remarkable for its height, one of the earliest “skyscrapers” in upstate New York. The bank had been half-empty, in disrepair, and the first choice of eight city aldermen for a new parking lot. Within a year of the DA’s move, however, the New Holland Bank Building was filled with city and county offices, and the owner, Harvey Richards, had drawn up plans for a complete renovation due to begin in January 1961. The DA had saved the historic building from demolition and saved county taxpayers a couple hundred thousand dollars at the same time.

Don had chosen the southwest corner of the top floor for his own office because, he claimed, he worked late, and the setting sun made his day seem longer. But I knew he liked to have a cocktail at twilight. He was just hanging up the phone when his secretary showed me in.

“Have a seat, Miss Stone,” he said playfully, pointing to the chair in front of his desk. “I want to talk to you about your trip. But first, how about a thimbleful?”

I looked at my watch: 12:21 p.m. “Friday afternoon—why not?”

He poured us each a Scotch, then settled into the leather chair behind his desk.

“So what’s this I hear about a murder in Boston?”

I explained how I had found Jordan’s roommate dead in their apartment, and I told him that some enterprising soul had redecorated D. J. Nichols’s digs and frightened him into hiding. Or perhaps worse.

“Boston police think he’ll resurface soon; I’m just hoping it won’t be in the Charles River. I was a little dismissive when he asked me for help.”

“He’ll be fine,” said Don, a little dismissive himself. “Who do you think killed the roommate?”

“Not sure, but I’ve got some candidates. Nichols told me someone was trying to set him up for the murders, though he couldn’t say why. What about on your end?” I asked. “You’re still going with murder one against Julio Hernandez?”

The DA took a sip of his Scotch and ran a hand absently through his blond hair. “I don’t know,” he droned in his nasal whine. “I’m inclined to agree with you, but I don’t want to drop the charge just yet. The kid might crack and admit to the whole thing. Busting the charge down to voyeurism and invasion of privacy won’t exactly persuade him to talk.”

“Why should he admit to something he didn’t do?” I asked. “Look, he may have been getting his jollies peeping through Jordan’s window, but the murder in Boston kind of lets him off the hook, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe. But he was on the run for four days after the first murder. Maybe he killed Jordan’s friend, too.”

“There are two hitches in that theory, Don,” I said. “First,
why
would he kill Ginny White? It’s a long way to go just to peep. And second, how could Julio have ransacked Nichols’s apartment? He was posing for a mug shot at the time.”

“Maybe the burglary was a coincidence,” he offered. “And maybe Julio had a reason for going to Boston.”

“You don’t believe that,” I said. “That’s Frank Olney talking.”

“Well, there’s no rush to drop the charges. Hernandez is still a few days away from the electric chair.”

I left the DA’s office a little lightheaded and crossed the street to the paper, where I developed enlarged prints of Jordan’s datebook. In the months before her death, Jordan had written down many of her comings and goings in the diary, but it was far from a comprehensive record. I began my search more than a year earlier, in June 1959:

The entries continued in the same cryptic fashion through August, with notes from her journey to India. I found it curious she had marked the visit to the clinic in her book; one doesn’t usually plan on emergency dysentery treatment or note down appointments after they’ve taken place.

Breaking from her routine, Jordan had made detailed entries about her India adventure in the datebook. She described the excitement of the arduous, seven-day string of flights to reach Bombay. Aboard a BOAC DC-7, she and a dozen fellow travelers left Idlewild for London Airport North. Jordan traveled de Luxe class, while D. J. had to settle for tourist. After a night in London, which included a
!
with D. J. in his room, the group took off for Rome, then Istanbul on a Super G Constellation. They stopped for two days in Istanbul to rest and to take in the sights. Jordan and D. J. managed a
!*
in the Istanbul Hilton while the others undoubtedly slept unawares in their rooms under their mosquito nets.

From Istanbul, the group hopped to Cairo, then Karachi, before finally reaching Bombay, where they spent two nights at the magnificent Taj Mahal Hotel near the Gateway of India. Two more
!*
s in her room there.

Jordan described in gushing detail exchanging dollars for pounds sterling, then liras, then rupees. Long lines at museums, wrestling with Italian and Turkish and Hindi in restaurants, bazaars, and hotels. Nearly fifty hours in the air, and stolen moments of whirlwind romance on the ground in European and Near Eastern capitals. It sounded terrifically romantic, and I was more than a little curious about D. J.’s punctuation prowess.

After her return from India, there were several mentions of someone named J. N., mostly for dinner, movies, coffee, and study breaks. I groaned at the appearance of another unknown. Who the hell was J. N.? I pushed on. In September, the asterisks, OKs, and NOs disappeared, and I was sure I knew why. A year later, closer to the date of her death, I found phone numbers, appointments, class schedules, and many references to D. J. Whoever J. N. was, he hadn’t completely displaced D. J.

November 1960 posed its own mysteries:

It was almost as if Jordan had known someone would try to decipher her datebook. Maybe she was having fun, or maybe it was a habit she’d learned over time to cover her tracks. Some of the initials still stumped me, but her secret codes and winks, intended to be known only by her, hadn’t fooled me. She hadn’t counted on a sister in crime finding them. I only hoped her cipher would point me to her killer. But with Julio in jail and quite unwilling to cooperate, I needed help. I had an idea to stir the pot and decided to start a rumor.

Fran Bartolo lived with her parents near the public golf course. I called and arranged to pick her up at three for a drive out to McAllister Road—a quiet thoroughfare by day, desolate lovers’ lane by night—which cut across several farms overlooking the valley. It was the perfect spot for an uninterrupted chat.

“So, what did you want to talk about?” asked Fran, once I’d thrown the car into park.

“I wanted to ask you about Glenda Whalen.”

“Glenda the Whale?” she asked, fiddling with the radio dial. “Tutti Frutti” came on. “Oh, I love this song!”

“Really?” I asked, the horror surely visible on my face. “Pat Boone?”

I remembered my brother, Elijah, railing against the travesty a few years earlier. He couldn’t understand how people preferred the soulless Pat Boone version to Little Richard’s original. Elijah cared about everything, from music to politics, and he was always on the right side, though that was always pretty far left. That assured him of butting heads with my willful father on a daily basis. They seemed to disagree on everything
except
politics. And yet, neither harbored any ill will toward the other, at least not after a few minutes had passed. Where I was concerned, however, a disagreement over the weather could incur my father’s rancor for weeks.

“What’s wrong, Ellie?” asked Franny, rousing me from my thoughts. “You look sad.”

“Nothing,” I said, chasing Elijah and Dad from my thoughts. They’d be back later, I was sure, once my guard was down, once I fell asleep.

“Anyway, what do you want to know about the Whale?”

“That’s not nice, Fran,” I said.

“Well, Glenda’s not very nice,” she said as a matter of fact. “A horrible creature, who doesn’t know how to act in civilized society.”

“Jordan liked her, didn’t she?”