The Hayloft: a 1950s Mystery (15 page)

There was only a short time that I would be able to
talk to Sonny before he would be off defending his country. I might
learn something. If I didn’t, I would drop all non-school-related
activities and do exactly what Dr. Graves wanted me to do, so that
I could graduate from high school and get out of here.

I continued on Main Street past the high school for a
mile and then turned left into a relatively recent housing
development. I had looked up Sonny’s address in the telephone book
and then verified the street with Sylvia, so that I knew I had the
correct Erskine, but without telling her what I was thinking of
doing.

The house was a two-story, wooden structure with a
fresh coat of paint. It was typical of the small houses built just
after World War II, when there was a big demand for new housing.
Soldiers returned from the war, and everybody started spending the
money they had hoarded. There had been nothing to spend it on
during the war, what with so many things being rationed. My parents
still had leftover ration coupons that had been doled out to them
sparingly. Coupons that enabled them to buy gasoline and essential
food items, in addition to other necessities.

I parked on the street and sat in the car while I
reviewed what I wanted to say. This was not going to be easy. I
forced myself to open the door, get out, and run up the asphalt
driveway, trying to stay as dry as possible as the rain continued
to pelt down. I rang the doorbell and got wetter and wetter until a
middle-aged woman wearing a housedress and glasses opened the main
door and then the outer door, which held a screen during the
summer, but now had a storm window in it.

“Come in out of the rain,” she said, holding that
door open.

I did, gratefully. Then, giving her my best smile, I
said, “Hello, you must be Mrs. Erskine. My name is Gary Blanchard,
and I’m working on a story for the town newspaper. I’d like to talk
to Sonny.”

She looked at me suspiciously and said, “A reporter
for the Carter Press was here yesterday. And a photographer. They
took his picture and everything.”

I should have anticipated this. “Yes, well I’m
actually working for the Carter school paper. I’m sorry; I
misspoke. We’re trying to keep up with some of our graduates,
particularly the grads who are doing important things, like Sonny
is.”

Her look softened a little, and she said, “Come on
in. Sonny’s upstairs. I’ll get him. Hang up your wet jacket.”

I was in an entryway, which doubled as a coat closet.
I took off my jacket, hung it on a hook, and went through the next
doorway. This area doubled as the entrance to the living room and
the landing at the bottom of the stairs.

Mrs. Erskine called up the stairs. “Sonny, there’s
someone to see you from the high school paper.”

“Who is it?” a muffled voice called back.

I repeated my name for her, and she yelled it up the
stairs.

“Never heard of him.”

“Well, get yourself down here anyway. Show some
manners.”

I heard the sound of footsteps over our heads, and
then a young man appeared at the top of the stairs. He came down
them in a hurry, his army-issue boots sounding like machine gun
fire on the wooden steps. I got a quick look at him and saw that
his hair was shaved down almost to fuzz. He was tall and solidly
built, and he had a strong face with patriotic eyes in a head
shaped like a snub-nosed bullet.

He grabbed my hand in a vice-like grip and said,
“Your name’s Blanchard? Do you go to Carter?”

“I’m new,” I said, trying to keep from wincing. “Just
transferred from Atherton.”

“Well, sit down and tell me what’s happening at the
school. I hear we beat Atherton in football.”

I followed him into the living room and sat on a
couch covered with a patterned design while he sat on an easy chair
facing me. Mrs. Erskine went out to the kitchen to get us drinks.
We talked about the football team, and he asked me about various
people. I knew some of them. He didn’t mention Sylvia, and I didn’t
either. He had played football and swum for Carter. Mrs. Erskine
returned with our drinks.

I opened my spiral notebook and pretended to take
notes. I asked Sonny about life in the military. He seemed to have
survived basic training in good shape. He said the worst thing
about it was being confined to base for the first few weeks. The
food wasn’t bad and he tried to get near the front of the chow
line, eat fast, and go back for seconds. He had gained weight, but
he looked hard.

He said he wanted to get into the airborne unit and
jump from airplanes. That wouldn’t have been my choice, but he
looked serious and I had no doubt that he was. Although he talked
readily, I wasn’t sure how to approach the subject I was interested
in.

I asked him a couple of questions about being on the
swim team and then said, “Dr. Graves told me that you were a really
good swimmer. He said he like to watch you swim.”

“Yeah. Dr. G was a great athletic supporter. Get it?”
He chuckled.

I got it all right. Especially since that was one of
the phrases that got me into trouble at Atherton. I noticed that
Sonny called him Dr. G, like Sylvia did. “So you were buddies with
him?”

“I wouldn’t say we were buddies. After all, he was an
officer, and I was an enlisted man. And the grunts don’t fraternize
with the officers.”

I decided I’d better get to the point. “I heard a
story about Dr. Graves. I heard that he likes to take boys up on
the catwalk above the stage and have them sit on his lap.”

His muscles tensed, and I thought he was going to
spring out of his chair at me. He said, “Who the fuck do you think
you are? Talking like that about Dr. G. You better get out of
here.”

I thought that was a good idea. I stood up and edged
past Sonny as one might edge past a crouching leopard. As I got to
the entryway, Mrs. Erskine came into the living room. “Thanks for
the coke,” I said to her.

“Did you get the information you needed?” she
asked.

“I believe I did,” I said. “Thanks for your time,
Sonny.” I remembered to grab my jacket before I made a hasty exit
into the rain.

CHAPTER 16

On Tuesday morning I picked Sylvia up at the
usual time. Sonny had deserted her; I wasn’t going to. I tried not
to think about what might happen as a result.

Tuesday marked the one-week anniversary that
the freedom fighters, as we called ourselves somewhat ironically,
had eaten lunch together. Ironic because we had different
definitions of freedom. Except that I had defected the day before.
But nobody said anything. Neither Ed nor Barney said that Dr.
Graves had talked to him. And I didn’t either.

As I bit into my salami sandwich that Aunt
Dorothy had made for me—I had decided to bring my own lunch for a
while, because I had been growing less and less excited about the
cafeteria lunches—I prepared to tell the others what I had on my
mind, namely that we could do something together in addition to
just eating lunch.

Apart from what Dr. Graves thought, our
status at the school was mixed. Sylvia was still being snubbed by
the majority of the students. She was going through the motions of
being student council president, but she couldn’t generate the
support and enthusiasm that she had before. It was a good thing the
student council didn’t actually do anything important, as she told
us.

The three of us boys may have suffered some
because of our association with her, but it was hard to tell.
Barney had always been an individualist. Ed was still editor of the
school paper, and his effectiveness didn’t seem to have diminished.
And I was still the new kid, with limited acquaintances, so I
didn’t have anything to compare to, except Atherton, where I had
known many students and been moderately popular.

I took the last bite of my sandwich, chewed,
and swallowed it before I started speaking. “As long as the rest of
the world is shunning us in the lunchroom, maybe we can use that to
our advantage. Nobody can hear what we’re saying.”

I looked around and verified the truth of
that statement. The students at nearby tables were talking much too
loudly to be able to hear us, and the jukebox played an up-tempo
rendition of “Jambalaya,” by Jo Stafford, which added to the
general noise level. Then I said, “Uh, how do you two feel about
Dr. Graves?” I addressed the question to Ed and Barney.

“Compared to what?” Ed asked. “Every school
has a principal. I guess he’s as good as any.”

“He doesn’t have the wisdom of Solomon or the
diplomatic skills of Winston Churchill,” Barney said, “but since
this is only a high school and not an international political
forum, he doesn’t really need them.”

“Has he talked to either of you about
fraternizing with Sylvia?”

They both shook their heads.

I looked around again to make sure that
nobody was paying any attention to us and leaned forward to be
closer to them. “But what if he were somehow involved in Ralph’s
death?”

I had their attention. I repeated the catwalk
story that I had already told Sylvia. I said my contact had
indicated that Dr. Graves liked Ralph, and I mentioned that Dr.
Graves had admitted to sometimes attending swimming classes. I
speculated about him and Ralph having a fight.

“He’s involved in anything to do with
sports,” Ed said. “He helps out with all the athletic teams. That
doesn’t prove he’s queer.”

“Just because some beer-soaked kid told you a
story about Dr. Graves, that doesn’t mean it’s true,” Barney said.
“Maybe Graves gave him detention, and he’s trying to get back at
him. Is he willing to go public with his story?”

“No.”

“Then it seems to me we’re still at square
one. And even if we could find kids to testify that he took them up
on the catwalk, that doesn’t prove he killed Ralph. Although we
might be able to get him fired for conduct unbecoming a principal.
And I understand that Sylvia has her own reasons for wanting him
fired.”

Barney looked at Sylvia, who made a face that
was probably meant for Dr. Graves. I didn’t mention that I also had
my reasons for wanting him fired.

“Do you want justice for Ralph?” I asked.

“Of course,” Ed said. “Besides, it would make
a great news story. I could help write the story for the
Express
.”

Ed was ambitious. Maybe I could harness that
ambition. And after all, he was Ralph’s cousin, just as I was, even
if not as close. “What we need to do is find out where Dr. Graves
was during the half hour after the assembly on the day Ralph fell
off the balcony.”

“Or was pushed,” Sylvia said.

“That was six months ago,” Barney pointed
out. “How are we going to do that? Graves is a wanderer, anyway.
He’s always roaming the halls.”

“Which would have made it easy for him to go
there without arousing suspicion if he had set up a meeting with
Ralph,” Sylvia said.

“Why wouldn’t he talk to Ralph in his
office?” Barney asked.

“Maybe it wasn’t just a meeting, but an
assignation,” I said, trying to stimulate ideas, although I
honestly couldn’t picture Ralph acting that way.

“Ralph always had a girlfriend,” Barney said.
“He wasn’t queer. I’ve read detective stories. We don’t have a
motive.”

I wasn’t willing to give up. “But might they
have fought for other reasons? Is anybody interested in
investigating that angle—asking around to see what you can find
out?”

“I’ll talk to Ruth,” Ed said. “She would know
if Ralph were having a problem with Dr. Graves.”

“Some of the kids still talk to me,” Sylvia
said. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

Barney said, “It does sound like fun. School
isn’t much of a challenge. Maybe this will make it more
interesting.”

“I’ll talk to Ralph’s parents,” I said.

As we walked out of the lunchroom, Ed fell
into step beside me and said, “I can get my mom’s car this
afternoon. What if I come over to the farm, and we could play in
the hayloft?”

“What, basketball?” I asked, thinking about
Ed’s lack of skill in that sport. I had been shooting baskets in
the barn almost every afternoon, preparing to go out for the team,
but I wasn’t sure Ed’s presence would help me.

“Yeah, and sliding down the haystack. I
didn’t get to try that. Kate told me how much fun it is. In fact,
she’d like to come, too. She’d like you to help her make a fort.
She thinks that would be a blast.”

And Kate was a lot better looking than Ed.
“All right,” I said. “But dress warm. It’s getting cold up
there.”

***

We played two on one, with me being the one. I got a
good workout trying to dribble the ball against two defenders. On
defense, I was lax. I wasn’t going to guard Kate closely, and Ed
couldn’t hit the broad side of the barn, so she scored most of
their points.

After I won a couple of games, Ed said, “I
want to slide down the hay.”

A child’s game, but what the heck. I led them
up to the top of the haystack on one side of the hayloft and down
we slid with appropriate squeals of joy. We repeated this several
times until Kate suggested that she and I slide down in tandem.

I wasn’t too sure about this. I said, “You
can slide down with Ed.”

“He’s my brother.” She made it sound as if he
had a disease. “I want to slide down with you.”

I guessed it wouldn’t hurt anything. I sat
down at the top of the slide, and she sat between my legs. I
gingerly put my arms around her. Otherwise, we wouldn’t stay
together. Even though we both were wearing several layers of
clothes, I was conscious of the fact that I had my arms around a
pretty girl. And she wrapped her arms around my legs.

We pushed off and went sailing down the hay
chute. We landed at the bottom with a bump and a tangle of bodies.
It occurred to me that this wasn’t child’s play anymore. We slid
down several more times together. I began to have lustful thoughts
and, with them, a twinge of guilt. What was Ed doing to protect his
little sister? Nothing. He seemed to be having too much fun sliding
on his own. He was ignoring us.