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Authors: Mark Richard Zubro

Why Isn't Becky Twitchell Dead? (9 page)

BOOK: Why Isn't Becky Twitchell Dead?
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“You two can stay as long as you like,” George said. “Just be sure to close the door when you leave.”
“You told me yesterday, George—” I began
He turned on me, for once his voice raised. “I told you what? Do you have a witness, a tape, some kind of proof? I'm not responsible for what you make up.”
“What are you guys afraid of?”
“Nothing,” George said breezily. They were two-thirds of the way out of the locker room before I could think of anything to say, and by then it was too late.
Outside the wind howled at a gale. Icy flurries roared by in horizontal bursts. It had to be well below zero. The wind slammed the snow into swirling drifts. We hurried to the car. The interior was frigid, the seat shockingly cold on my ass. Scott started the car and got the heater going. He said, “Supposed to hit record cold tonight, with another storm. I thought it wasn't supposed to snow when it was this cold.”
“Somebody lied to you,” I said. Growing up in southern Alabama had not prepared him for Chicago at fifteen below.
“That little scene in there was a fiasco,” I said.
“They're scared shitless, especially Pete,” Scott said. “I can't believe a teacher buying drugs from kids. That is major-league stupid. You going to report it?”
“I doubt it. I've got no real proof.” Scott's Porsche had quickly reached a comfortable warmth. “Let's go eat first and come back for my car later. Then I want to try to talk to some parents tonight. I haven't had the greatest luck with the kids; maybe I can learn something from the parents.”
Scott swung the car out of the parking lot. I gazed at the cold brick mass of the darkened school as we moved down the drive to 167th Street. A shadow darker than the others caught my eye. It was out of place. I stared hard.
“Stop the car,” I said.
He braked. “What?”
I peered out. Snow swirled for a minute, blocking my view of the school. The wind died for a few moments. “I've been teaching here sixteen years and that shadow's never been there before.” I pointed.
“I don't see anything,” Scott said. “It's probably just a snowdrift.”
I already had the car door open, however. “Wait. I'm going to check it out.” I hurried the thirty-five feet to the wall. I heard Scott's car door slam, listened to the crunch of his feet through the snow behind me.
Two feet from the school, in a valley between two rapidly growing drifts, was a body, face turned away from me, coat wide open, with no hat or gloves on. With a wind chill factor of seventy below zero, exposed skin could freeze in minutes.
I bent over the body and turned the head. It was Eric. I leaned closer, put my hand on his chest, felt it barely rise and fall.
Strong as we are and as good shape as we're in, it was still a struggle to carry Eric into the school. I called the paramedics and Mrs. Trask. We followed the ambulance to Palos Community Hospital. We met Mrs. Trask in the emergency room.
We grabbed a bite to eat in the hospital cafeteria, and went back to check on Eric. The doctor said the boy was in poor shape. He'd only been in the cold a few minutes, she thought, but the danger of frostbite was great. He might lose several fingers at least. They wouldn't know for a few days. He'd also been badly beaten and had three broken ribs. He was under sedation. We could see him the next day. We talked to the police, listened to Mrs. Trask's complaints, and left.
We went back to get my car. It was only seven but the streets were nearly deserted. Scott's car glided easily over icy patches and through rapidly building drifts. When we'd found Eric, there hadn't been time for more than a perfunctory glance around.
Back at school, we found any search was useless. I wanted to find Eric's gym bag. In the time since we'd found him, the snow had completely drifted over all traces of what had happened. We hunted in a wide arc out from the school but couldn't find his bag.
Scott followed as I drove my car to my place. Back in his car, I said, “Was this Becky's revenge?”
“How could she know he told and what he told? Could she be that efficient? Found out so quick and had an attack carried out?”
I shrugged. “We'll know more after we talk to Eric tomorrow. For now, I want to see the Conlans and Twitchells.” While going through the files, I'd written down the home addresses and phone numbers of all the kids and adults involved. Mr. Conlan sat on the River's Edge school board. We drove to the Conlans'.
Paul answered the door. With a confused look, he let us in. The Conlans lived in the exclusive area of River's Edge, newly built and filled with newly rich. Every home cost over four hundred thousand dollars. I explained that we wanted to talk to his parents.
He shuffled nervously for a few moments, but his parents solved the problem of their availability by entering the room. I made introductions and explained that we wanted to talk to them. Mrs. Conlan looked refined, elegant, and brittle. Her hair, makeup, and outfit were as clean, set, and pressed as if she were ready for luncheon rather than for an evening at home. Mr. Conlan wore baggy old pants, a dumpy sweater, and a genial smile. His slippers flopped on the tile as he led us to a sitting room. Paul tried to follow, but his dad waved him away. He told him the adults needed to talk.
Mrs. Conlan sat primly on the edge of a grimly brown settee. Mr. Conlan stood to her left and a little behind. All the furniture cluttered around may have been genuine antiques. As far as I knew, it could have been complete junk. Either way, I guessed we were supposed to be aware of how expensive it was. None of it seemed to match. The LeRoy Neiman sport scene hanging on the wall behind them contributed to the feeling that we were in a
Better Homes and Gardens
disaster area. Mrs. Conlan touched her blond hairdo, rearranging nothing. She said, “I don't see why you're here. We've talked to the police quite enough. Paul has been sufficiently upset as it is. Just because the poor
girl and that hideous boy were here before it happened is no reason to continue harassing us. Can't the children get together for a little innocent fun on a Sunday afternoon without all kinds of people making a horrible issue of it?”
“I wouldn't call murder innocent fun,” I said.
The wispy wave of her hand dismissed my comment. Mr. Conlan stopped any retort of hers. He said, “Dear, perhaps you didn't catch Mr. Carpenter's name.”
She patted her hair again. “Is that important, Harold, when we're talking about our son?”
“Mr. Carpenter is a professional baseball player, dear. He's quite famous, a major sports star. I believe the papers have mentioned he owns a penthouse on Lake Shore Drive.”
“Really.” Her tone was more accommodating now. “Perhaps you could help Paul with his career. He's practiced very hard since he was nine. He studies, too, of course. He's not a dummy. My father and brothers were athletes.” She gave a little cough, meant to be demure, I guessed. “I, of course, was a cheerleader.” She gave a little titter, then continued. “We want him to follow in the family tradition. Of course, he'll go to the best college and get an education. He'll need something to fall back on when his professional career is behind him.”
“Perhaps Mr. Carpenter would endorse the opera benefit,” her husband said.
“I'd be delighted,” Scott said.
“You would?” The titter returned, this time behind one of her hands. “I'll just step into the study and get the information.” She bustled out the door.
Mr. Conlan's face split into a slow, easy grin. He was gray-haired and I guessed in his mid-fifties. “She'll be gone a few minutes, so we can get something accomplished. She means well. She gets Paul mixed up with her father, her brothers, and her ego. Don't get me wrong, I want Paul to succeed, but at what
he
wants. I think this pressure is wrong.”
“Mr. Conlan,” I began.
“Call me Harry.”
“Harry,” I corrected. “We wanted to find out more about Sunday.” I explained about Jeff and helping with the investigation.
“I can't tell you much. We had the monthly meeting with the Sports Boosters, then we attended one of Sylvia's charity benefits. We got home quite late. News of the murder had already reached here before then.”
“Did anybody chaperon the Sunday parties?”
“My wife and I would stop in occasionally. The kids came here, you know, because we have the largest TV screen. This last year, they added girls to the company. I guess sports can keep boys from discovering girls only just so long.”
“Did they do drugs or alcohol at the parties?”
“I never saw any. I trust Paul implicitly. He's never betrayed my trust in him. Being kids in today's world, I suspect they did some experimenting.”
“I know it's none of my business, but I'm curious about Paul's relationship with Becky Twitchell.”
He frowned. “The girl is a problem. She always seems to have her hands all over him.”
Mrs. Conlan rolled in a portable bar. She'd heard her husband's last comment. “You must be talking about that hideous Becky Twitchell,” she said. “After every visit from her, something is missing from this house. I know it's her who's stealing. I've warned Paul about her numerous times. She's nothing but trouble.”
“You called Jeff hideous earlier,” I said to her.
“Isn't a murderer hideous?” she asked.
“He hasn't had a trial yet,” I said. I got a nasty look for that crack. I hurried to ask, “Did you know Susan Warren?”
“She was not the right sort at all. I commented many times to my husband, never in front of the poor girl, of course, that
she dressed in rags. She wasn't even up to K-Mart. She was hardly our concern, but that Becky girl was.”
“Becky used to mouth off to my wife a great deal. I stayed out of the child's way. I told my wife any nasty comments she made would simply drive Paul and Becky together.”
“My husband understands young people so much better than I.” Her brittle smile hid any disagreement.
We left a few moments later, refusing refreshment even though Mrs. Conlan pressed us. She beamed when we left, though. Scott'd agreed to attend an opera benefit in January.
“The things I do for you,” he said in the car. “I'm going to the opera. I hate opera. There're going to be fat ladies with low-cut dresses bellowing to the last balcony.”
“And opera queens who will swoon over you.”
“Shit.”
“Maybe you'll learn to like opera.”
“Maybe I'll flap my arms and fly to the moon.”
The snow had worsened, but the wind had let up a little. It was eight-thirty, early enough to stop in at the Twitchells'.
As we drove, Scott said, “I liked Mr. Conlan. He didn't seem rushed or driven, more laid-back, cool.”
I reminded him that Mrs. Trask had said nasty things about Paul's parents.
“Speaking of nasty, aren't you afraid the Twitchells will cause problems at work? Mrs. Twitchell does seem to be behind the pressure there.”
“When have you known me to put up with bullshit from work?”
“Not often.”
“And it's not starting tonight. My guess is lots of these people have something to hide. I want to find out what it is and if it's connected to the murder.”
On the car radio, the announcer on WBBM, an all-news station, claimed it would stop snowing soon. They predicted twenty below by morning. Out the car window, it looked as if it would
snow until the end of the next ice age. Scott's car purred through the storm. We were almost the only ones on the road.
An angry Mr. Twitchell let us in. We explained why we'd come.
He said. “Where's Becky? That tramp is out there somewhere in this chaos. She's never home. She's pulled this for the last time.” They lived in the older section of River's Edge, north of the Forest Preserve. Dark wood paneling crept halfway up the walls. We talked in the foyer, coats on. He hadn't invited us in farther.
“You're overreacting, Fred. She'll call.” A woman's voice preceded a tall striking-looking woman. She introduced herself to us. Mrs. Twitchell was a stark contrast to her short, freckled husband. She had to be in her forties, but she tried for an early-twenties look. She wore the worst-fitting clothes I'd ever seen, her pants clinging tighter than a taut rubber band. If she had any taste, she'd have made it to the level of cheap whore. As it was, one needed an eye shield, or preferably a blindfold, to protect one's sensibilities from the clashing apple green and hot pink color scheme and mismatched styles.
She pointed an elegantly painted maroon fingernail at me. “What are you doing here?” She could have been her own snowstorm of cold. “Weren't you told to leave Becky alone?”
“Don't cover for her again, Sally,” he said.
“You'll loose your temper again,” she said. “You know what the doctor says about overexerting yourself.”
“He didn't know I had a slut for a daughter.”
She turned to us. “It's time for you gentlemen to leave.”
“We wanted to talk about Becky,” I said.
“She needs a strong hand, tough discipline to keep her in line. Sally's coddled her for years. That's the problem.”
Mrs. Twitchell added another twenty chilly degrees to her tone as she responded to him. “You can't see that she's a young woman who needs to become independent.”
“Independent, horseshit. She runs you. She'd like to run this house. Who pays the bills around here?”
I tried a question. “Where's Becky tonight?”
“Whoring with that Conlan boy,” Mr. Twitchell said.
“We just saw him at his house not more than a half hour ago,” I said.
“She was hiding there,” he said. “He's lied for her before. He's got one thing on his mind.”
“You think that because it's all you have on your mind,” Mrs. Twitchell said.
I tried a different question. “Do you know anything about Becky's whereabouts Sunday?”
“I think that's enough questions,” Mrs. Twitchell said. “Our daughter, as should be abundantly clear to you, is none of your concern.”
This touched off another domestic barrage that looked ready to escalate into total war. We beat a hasty retreat.
Scott let me drive. I love the feel of the Porsche under my control. I suppose it's juvenile. I'm the only one who's had it up over one hundred miles an hour.
“That was a disaster,” Scott said.
As we neared 167th Street on LaGrange Road, I noticed a car in the rearview mirror. I changed lanes, slowed down, put my turn signals on. The car followed relentlessly. I tapped Scott and pointed. “I think we're being followed,” I said.
“Again.” Scott sounded bored.
I drove past our turnoff on 179th Street. The other car made no move over the I—80 bridge as before. We passed a lumbering oil tanker just before the road narrowed to two lanes past 191st Street. The other car screeched around the tanker. In my rearview mirror, I watched the truck jackknife and skid to a stop ten feet from the window of Fleckstein's Bakery. We caught the light on orange at Willow Lane. The other car sped through on red. I gazed carefully at it in the rearview mirror. It didn't look like the car from the night before.
BOOK: Why Isn't Becky Twitchell Dead?
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