The Man in the Woods (8 page)

“What’s the matter?”

“Tuesday afternoon I saw Stubby for just a minute or two in Mr. Casey’s office. Mr. Casey was yelling at him for stealing a necklace from a Perry and Crowe truck. I heard Mr. Casey say loud and clear that Stubby had a summer job loading trucks for Perry and Crowe.”

Pinky picked a long shaft of barley grass and sucked on it between his two front teeth.

“Well, I knew Stubby a little from back in St. Theresa’s. He wasn’t stupid. If he had a job loading UPS trucks, he’d know what he was loading in the trucks, wouldn’t he? If he was trying to support his drug habit by stealing jewelry or money, he’d have tried to rob the store instead. He certainly wouldn’t waste his time throwing rocks at UPS vans carrying knickknacks. What’s he going to do? Cause an accident, run out on the highway, and make off with a pair of Lenox teacups? And sell ’em for dope on a street corner? He
had
to know what went into the trucks. He
worked
there.”

Pinky chewed the grass stem to bits and threw it away.

“Pinky, I
heard
him, and it wasn’t Stubby. I
saw
him, and it wasn’t Stubby. Stubby walks like an ape. Whoever this was walks gracefully. And now the police are saying Stubby was out there trying to loot jewelry trucks. That’s ridiculous. I don’t believe it. Do you?”

Pinky sucked a new piece of grass. Very slowly, his eyes never leaving Helen’s, he shook his head.

“Pinky,” said Helen. “No matter what the cops say, I’ve seen another part of this crime, haven’t I?”

A
FTER CHURCH AUNT STELLA
, who had been working on it for most of the morning, still could not come up with a good reason for Helen not to help Pinky with his history homework. “Doing homework is something you do with a friend, not a boy,” she insisted.

“But Pinky
is
a friend,” Helen insisted also.

Aunt Stella agreed at last to allow this to happen if it was to be “just this once.” “According to Martha Malone,” she said, “he’s a good boy. He helps his mother out at that motel she owns.” Aunt Stella pronounced the word
motel
as if she meant gambling den. “Martha also says he’s been held back a year in school.”

“Only one year,” said Helen. “That doesn’t matter much.”

“It may not matter now, Helen,” Aunt Stella warned, “but it will matter later. Martha says he’s a poor student. You never know when there’s some minimal brain damage. Those things are carried on from generation to generation.”

“Aunt Stella, please,” said Helen. “I’m not getting married to him. I’m just doing some homework with him.”

Aunt Stella sighed. “Just so you don’t think of him as someone with a future ahead of him,” she answered.

Even though Aunt Stella was completely prepared for Pinky’s arrival, she trilled, “Somebody here to see you!” up the stairs to Helen’s room when Pinky arrived.

They sat in the overstuffed wrought-iron lounges on the screen porch. For twenty minutes Helen read Pinky her notes about the Battle of Saratoga. Once again Pinky had slicked back his hair with water. His cowlick was just beginning to come to life on the back of his head. Several times he looked nervously in the direction of the kitchen, where Aunt Stella was making pleasant humming noises with an appliance.

“What’s she cooking in there?” Pinky asked when they’d finished studying.

“Don’t ask,” said Helen. “Pinky, we have to go back to the police.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No way. They weren’t interested before. They won’t be interested now. No way.”

“Pinky, please listen.”

“No.”

“Will you at least listen?”

“I’ll listen, but—”

“Just hear me out. First of all, I’m going to write a story for the
Whaler
. I’m going to write about everything. The accident. Chasing the guy through the woods. And I’m going to end the story on one big fat question. How come Stubby was trying to rob UPS trucks when he
had
to know all Perry and Crowe’s valuables were shipped in Brinks vans? I’m going to get a gold medal for my story, Pinky, but I have to find out whatever more I can from the cops.”

“Number one,” Pinky began, “the cops will absolutely not listen. Number two, Jerry Rosen will never in a hundred years even print your story. The stories that win the prizes are always about looking for fossils in Springfield Quarry or ... or teaching handicapped kids. The stories are judged by a bunch of teachers, and that’s the kind of thing teachers like. Not crime stories. No way you’re going to get that gold medal.”

“Pinky, nobody’s ever tried a story like this before, I’ll bet a million bucks. But
I’m
going to try, and I’m going to win it. You wait. The Punk Rock Thrower’s been terrorizing drivers for two months. It’s been all over the local papers and TV. If I can show that maybe the cops arrested the wrong guy, not only will it be in the
Whaler
, it’ll be in the
Post-Dispatch
too. Pinky, it’ll be a real story, not just some boring thing about bird-watching. It’s a one hundred percent cinch.”

“No freshman’s ever won the gold medal,” said Pinky.

“That’s going to change,” Helen answered.

Pinky picked up a loose bit of mortar and stuck it back between two pieces of slate on the floor of the porch. “I hate cops,” he said.

“I want to see their files,” said Helen. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to go marching in telling them they were wrong. I just want to see their files and ask them why they arrested Stubby. Will you come?”

Pinky didn’t answer this. He was busy with his bits of mortar.

“Pinky, do you think that in the twentieth century, in Massachusetts, U.S.A., the cops should arrest the wrong guy?”

Pinky did answer this, after a long wait. “All right,” he said miserably, “but don’t expect anything from the cops. They wouldn’t tell us if the atom bomb fell.”

“Believe me,” said Helen, “Aunt Stella will be a lot tougher than the cops.”

“The police station!” said Aunt Stella when they went into the kitchen to tell her they were going. Her hands were covered with gray, sticky dough. “Why on earth do you want to go to the police station?”

“It’s my story for the
Whaler
, Aunt Stella.”

“I thought you were an artist, not a writer.”

“Aunt Stella, we won’t be long, I promise.”

“
We?
First you and now him?”

“Pinky’s helping me, Aunt Stella.”

Aunt Stella shook the dough off her fingers into a bowl with a violent gesture. “I thought
you
were helping
him
,” she said.

“We finished the homework. What harm could come to us at the police station?”

“I was just making you some nice crullers,” said Aunt Stella.

“We’ll be home in time to eat them hot out of the oven,” Helen answered as reassuringly as she could.

“I don’t know what your father would say. He’ll be back from the store in an hour.”

“Daddy’d be proud of me, Aunt Stella. He liked the idea of the story. Just think. Me a lowly freshman winning a gold medal for the first time in the history of the
Whaler
!”

“You have your father’s silver Irish tongue, that’s what you have,” said Aunt Stella.

“Aunt Stella, you’re as Irish as Daddy.”

“Yes, and most of my Irish rubbed off on my poor Yankee husband, who drank himself to death, God rest his soul. I’m an American citizen, thank you very much.” Helen held in what her father always said when Aunt Stella denied her Irishness: She can take an oath, change her name, and sign a piece of paper, he had told Helen many times when Aunt Stella was out of earshot, but she’ll never change her cooking, her temper, or her religion, and they’re as Irish as Paddy’s pig, so there. “Please, Aunt Stella,” Helen begged.

“I don’t know what your poor dead mother would think,” Aunt Stella began but Pinky cut in, “I’ll take care of her,” he said.

“You!” said Aunt Stella. “She’s got twice your brains even if she’s half your size!”

When they’d gotten a few paces down the sidewalk, Helen stopped. “Pinky, I’m so sorry about what she said. I’m so embarrassed.”

“Eh!” Pinky answered her airily. “Don’t worry about it. Relatives are relatives. My relatives think I’m stupid too. They can’t believe I got kept back a year in an American school. If I went to school in Norway, they tell me, I’d have to learn three languages and differential calculus by seventh grade. They always tell me if I ate more fish like they do up in Norway, I’d get straight A’s. Eat fish, be smart, and live to a hundred. That’s what my Aunt Sonja tells me every time she comes over.”

“Do they live to a hundred?”

“Nah,” said Pinky. “They freeze to death first.”

Helen began to laugh.

“What are you laughing at?” Pinky asked, laughing himself.

“Just grown-ups. I hope when I’m a grownup, my brain won’t turn to solid rock like theirs.”

Pinky stopped walking abruptly. Helen turned around and waited for him to say something. He looked suddenly embarrassed. Clumsily he touched Helen on the shoulder. “Cops are grown-ups with rock-hard ideas too,” he said, “but I’m with you on this thing about the rock thrower. We’ll do it together.”

Chief Ryser was a big man, with enormous broad shoulders, a bull-like neck, and tiny, shiny little shoes. His smile twitched boyishly, and he seemed immensely pleased with himself and his spacious office. When Helen showed him her
Whaler
button, he was even more delighted and told them, “I’m an old
Whaler
man myself! Class of ’43. Sports photographer. Had a bum knee so I couldn’t play football. Now, what can I do for you nice folks?”

“We’re doing an article, sir, for the
Whaler
,” Helen began. “It’s on the fine work of the New Bedford police.” She swallowed hard knowing she wasn’t off to a very convincing start. “This is Mr. Pinky Levy, who is helping me.”

Ryser smiled like a crocodile.

“You see, sir, one of our classmates was arrested. That’s Stubby Atlas, of course. We at the
Whaler
feel that his story should be an example to all other teenagers who think of taking drugs.”

“Certainly should,” said Chief Ryser. Another policeman moved quietly about in the corner of the office. Helen did not look directly at him, but she recognized him from the day of the accident. He had been in the house but hadn’t talked to them.

“Could you tell us, sir,” she asked Ryser, “a little about how you found it was Stubby throwing rocks and terrifying all those innocent drivers? We in high school really have so little idea of how the police work.” Helen could nearly hear Pinky’s thoughts quivering as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. She wished he would sit still. Every time he squirmed, Ryser looked at him.

“Bring me the Atlas file, Frank,” said Chief Ryser.

His eyes twinkled, and he grinned at Pinky and Helen when the manila folder was placed on his blotter. “A hundred-percent certified criminal, your classmate,” he said. He licked his index finger and opened the file. “Here’s a photo of what we found on him. That’s ten grams of heroin. Cut, of course, but worth an arm and a leg. Some of these junkies will shoot up anything. This stuff was strong, let me tell you. Most of the time they’re down to about five percent heroin. This stuff was almost ten. No wonder he almost OD’d.”

“OD’d?” asked Helen.

“Overdosed. He had enough in him to kill an ox. If we hadn’t gotten the tip-off note about him we did that night, he’d have been a goner.”

“Tip-off note?” asked Helen, writing this on her drawing pad.

“Yup. About six
P.M.
Somebody dropped it in an empty squad car on the front seat. Car was parked at the corner of Wharf Street and Broad. We had that, and here ... He pushed a glossy photograph across the desk toward Helen.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“On the left,” he explained, “is an enlargement several thousand times of iron fragments found under Atlas’s fingernails. You can see in this other photograph they match exactly the iron fragments from the rock that hit Mrs. Sokol’s car.”

“And the tip-off note, sir? It wasn’t a telephoned tip-off?”

Ryser handed her the note. “Anybody who doesn’t want to have his voice recorded won’t call the station,” he said. “They know we can take voice prints if we send the tape up to Boston. The fellow just dropped this in the squad car. We’ve seen it a hundred times. Guy who tipped us off was one of Atlas’s pals, ninety-nine to one. Atlas was probably bragging his head off in a bar, some other jerk was listening, had a grudge, and told us about it. Sometimes the police are lucky that way,” he said with an ironic smile.

“Voice prints!” Pinky interrupted.

“Nothing but the best,” said Ryser.

“I was looking at your new copying machine over there,” Pinky remarked. “We sure could use one of those in the
Whaler
office. Save us a pile of work on the old mimeograph we have.”

Ryser left his desk and went over to the copier. “Expensive model.” He laughed out loud. “Taxpayers’ expense. Still, it’s a beaut, isn’t it?”

Helen began reading the rest of the file on Stubby Atlas. The knees of his pants had been examined by experts and the grass stains and soil found in the fabric matched the soil and grass of the hillside overlooking the last accident.

Ryser turned back to Helen. “We sure got our man,” he said, grinning.

“I guess so,” Helen answered him. “Iron fragments under the fingernails, footprints. Positive identification by one of the victims—”

“And a confession,” Ryser added proudly.

“A confession?” Helen asked.

“Signed and sealed,” said Ryser. He paused and looked at her curiously. “Don’t tell me you were the kids who were at the scene of the last accident.”

“Yes,” said Helen.

“You’re the girl who said she saw somebody up there in the woods singing? The sergeant told me about it.”

“Whistling,” Helen answered, embarrassed. “And it wasn’t Stubby Atlas either, because—”

“Honey,” said Ryser sweetly, “of course it wasn’t Stubby Atlas. You saw some jogger. Or maybe the old Indian living in the woods, I don’t know. But what does it matter? Just look at this. This is a confession. Atlas signed it He confessed to throwing the rocks at the trucks. Atlas’s mother came and signed it too and told us to put her own son away like we put his old man away. She was disgusted with him. She herself told him God was going to spit on his grave for what he’d done. Atlas spent the whole night in jail kissing the priest’s shoes and hands, asking forgiveness, thanking God he hadn’t killed the baby and the mother. Now, you kids definitely get a good citizenship award for your help, but don’t go thinking we caught the wrong guy.”