I had spent the rest of that early morning piecing together a rough chronology. Although a little unclear about some of the exact dates, I was confident my time line was accurate enough. Having things written out really helped me see certain causal relationships that had earlier escaped my notice. For instance, Larry Mac’s offering me my shield followed closely on the heels of my initial conversation with Sandra Sotomayor about HNJ1956. And wasn’t it convenient of Sandra to supply me with a perfectly reasonable explanation of Moira’s connection to HNJ1956 on the very same day I received my package from Media Search, Inc. This, in spite of the fact that I hadn’t asked her about it for weeks. I believe in coincidences as much as the next guy. To swallow these, however, would require more faith than I currently had on account.
There were other, far more disturbing conveniences and coincidences, but to make any sense of them I would need help. Problem was, the people I would usually go to for assistance had been compromised. They were now all so invested in keeping the stench of scandal off Steven Brightman, I couldn’t be absolutely sure I’d be able to trust them. An outsider looking at this set of circumstances might well make the same judgment about me. If I pretended to have never read Wit’s piece and forgot all about HNJ1956, I’d have my dream fulfilled. Unfortunately for the guilty party, no dream of mine or anyone else’s was worth two murders and a suicide.
I was about to attempt quite a precarious balancing act. The challenge was picking my stage assistant. There was only one candidate I could count on for the job, one who would not give me away, intentionally or otherwise. This trust was not based on something so facile or unsavory as self-interest or personal gain, but on the death of a man’s grandson. I dialed Wit’s number for the second time in two days.
The ride out to Hallworth from Manhattan took less than half an hour. Before picking Wit up at his hotel, I’d stopped at the Brooklyn store to retrieve the clippings from Media Search, Inc. Just as on our trips to and from Long Island, we rode in near silence. Wit looked through the clippings as I drove and scanned the map. We had already discussed strategy on the phone, and what was there to say, really?
Coming into Hallworth, we crossed over a tiny one-lane bridge, the wood plank roadway sighing from the strain. Beneath us, an endless freight train lazily clanked its way along lonely tracks, blowing its mournful horn as if to announce our arrival. We were here, after all, to unbury the dead. I pictured Carl Stipe, his bicycle leaning against his hip, tossing rocks off the tiny bridge at passing trains.
Hallworth was a town of big hills, green carpet lawns, and lush, gnarly trees. Beyond the big Victorian manses scattered about the little hamlet, there was something palpably old-fashioned about this place. If you hid the cars parked in the driveways along Main Street, a time traveler might say he’d landed in 1935 instead of 1983. There was a comfortable feel to a place where bulldozers and wood chippers had yet to lay waste to vast tracts of land. Everything was grown in, grown up, or grown over. I liked that. I also liked how the asymmetry of the streets actually depended more on topography than on some greedy developer’s vision. There wasn’t an artificial cul-de-sac as far as the eye could see. Wit and I agreed that it much resembled the town we’d seen glimpses of in the clippings about Carl Stipe’s murder. It wasn’t hard to fathom how traumatic such a crime had been in a place like this.
We parked out in front of the Hallworth Herald offices on Terrace Street. Terrace Street seemed to be the only street in town dedicated to commerce, and that dedication was halfhearted at best. It wasn’t Rodeo Drive, not by a long shot. There was a quick mart, a pizzeria, a video store, a dentist’s office, a shrink’s, and a druggist’s.
The Herald was a storefront operation with green linoleum floors, a pressed tin ceiling, and desk legs held together with nails and adhesive tape. There was a beat-up TV in one corner, and a radio, too. Each of the five desks in the office was covered in mountains of paper under which typewriters and telephones were the only recognizable features. Curled and yellowed ads and articles were thumbtacked to the walls in between framed front pages from past editions. Stories about Carl Stipe’s murder were conspicuous by their absence.
Only two of the desks were currently occupied. Seated closest to the door was a mousy woman of indistinct age. She had stooped shoulders and pale skin, and smoked a cigarette that seemed surgically attached to her lower lip. Toward the rear of the place was a real old-timer. He was bald on top and gray on the sides, and looked like he hadn’t eaten since a week ago last August. Maybe he was too busy sucking on his pipe to be bothered with food. Neither the cigarette nor the pipe seemed anxious to help us. I cleared my throat loudly enough to get their attention.
“Can I do something for you gentlemen?” the old guy spoke up.
We walked back to his desk, the mousy woman paying us no mind at all. When we got closer to the ancient mariner, he slipped on a pair of wire-frame glasses.
“I’m Y. W. Fenn,” Wit announced with the proper blend of conceit and humility. “This is my driver, Moe.”
“Micah Farr,” the old man stuck out his right hand, “editor in chief, reporter, copyboy, and dishwasher. To what do we owe the pleasure of a visit from the great Yancy Whittle Fenn?”
Wit and I exchanged knowing glances. We recognized Farr’s name from the Stipe murder coverage. Farr had done all the local reporting, some of his stuff getting picked up by bigger papers.
“Call me Wit.”
“Everybody calls him Wit,” I chimed in.
“Okay, Wit, what brings you to our fair hamlet?”
“Steven Brightman. I did a piece on him-”
“-in Esquire. Yeah, I read it. Good work.”
“Indeed. Thank you. My concept is to do a follow-up about what shaped and influenced Brightman, a sort of prequel to my Esquire expose. In it, I’d delve into his early years here in Hallworth and then across the river.”
“Nice idea,” Farr agreed. “No doubt now that he’s been cleared of suspicion in that poor woman’s murder, the ambitious little bastard’s set his sights on the next Senate race. When he announces, you’ll have your piece all set to go.”
Wit winked at the reporter. “Why, how cynical of you, Mr. Farr.”
“Yeah, I guess so. By the way, call me Mike.”
“Everybody call you Mike?” I wondered.
“Nah, everybody who knows me calls me an old prick, but since we’re just getting acquainted, Mike’ll do for now.”
We all had a good laugh at that. Mike explained that the girl at the front desk was his niece and how she’d had the misfortune of catching the journalism bug early in life.
“Learned at her uncle’s knee, I’m afraid. Too bad. She’ll end up like me,” Farr bemoaned, “old, lonely, and forgotten.”
Wit changed subjects. “We were curious if you could take a few hours to show us around. You know, point out the old Brightman house, where he went to school. If you have any old anecdotes about him or could introduce us to some people who knew him. I’ll credit you in the piece.”
“Love to. We haven’t had a juicy story of our own since … well, not in a long long time. Not much happens around here. Which is a good thing, I suppose. Annie can hold down the fort. Can’t you, dear?” he shouted to her.
She just waved.
We put Farr in the front seat next to me. Wit sat in the back. The old reporter guided us through a series of lefts and rights, pointing out houses that he thought were particularly pretty or that had been designed by famous architects.
“These are the greenest lawns I’ve ever seen,” I said without really meaning to.
“Yeah,” Farr agreed, “the town is patrolled by lawn police. If they find any brown spots, a truck comes by that night and sprays it to match your grass.”
He took us by a country club that was rimmed by beautifully trimmed hedges. Besides their meticulous upkeep, the hedges were remarkable in that they were of varying heights, widths, and lengths. Yet from our vantage point it was impossible to discern a coherent pattern.
“They’re pretty amazing, aren’t they?” Micah Farr was almost boastful. “Word is, they’re even nicer in an aerial view. The rumor is that from above they spell out ‘No Jews.’”
“How pleasant,” Wit remarked.
“We got other country clubs let everybody in, but the hedges ain’t as pretty. Brightman’s old man used to be a member here. That’s why I showed it to you.”
“A lot of anti-Semitism in Hallworth?” I asked.
“Not really, no. Even here, it’s not true anymore. The town’s changed over the years, but not very much. That’s the glory of this place, people don’t really change it. It changes them, almost always for the better.” Farr was wistful. “It’s why I’ve stayed all my life.”
Finally, the old reporter took us to the woods by the reservoir where Carl Stipe had been murdered.
“That’s the reservoir over there.” He pointed. “There’s the pool club. That house over there, you see it? Just through the woods. That’s where Brightman lived as a kid.”
Wit spoke on cue. “You know, Mike, in the course of my background research on Brightman, I came across some rather disturbing stories about a child being-”
“Carl Stipe was his name. He was the mayor’s kid,” Farr interrupted, a mixture of dread and excitement in his voice. “He was found not five feet from where we’re standing. In fact, his house was right over there.” He pointed in the opposite direction from the old Brightman house.
“He was tortured or something as I recall, wasn’t he?” Wit played it cool.
“Sticks shoved down his throat. It was horrible.”
“You saw the body, then?” I asked.
‘I did. By the time they found him, all his blood had settled. He was white as a sheet, his eyes frozen open, staring up at the canopy.” Farr looked up at the trees. “I’m not likely to forget that.”
“If I remember correctly, a drifter did it,” Wit said.
“Nah,” Farr pooh-poohed. “That guy Martz had nothing to do with it.”
“But-”
“But nothing, Wit,” Farr insisted. “People believe stuff sometimes because it’s what they want to believe. You know that. And the people around here wanted to believe Martz did it more than anything. They wanted to get on with their lives, and that would have been impossible if they thought the killer was still roaming around out there somewhere. Or worse still, if the killer was living among them. No sirree, everybody around here was pretty well interested in hanging it on that poor sick bastard Martz.”
“Everyone except you,” I said, remembering the follow-up articles which had appeared in the Herald marking the anniversary of the murder.
“I didn’t buy it then and I don’t buy it now.”
“Did the police ever have any other suspects beside this Martz fellow?” Wit was curious to know.
“If they did, they weren’t saying.”
“And you?” I asked.
“Me? I’m a reporter. I don’t have theories.”
“Did they ever recover the bicycle?” Wit wanted to know.
Micah Farr squinted at us suspiciously. “You two fellows seem awfully more interested in the Stipe murder than Brightman. What’s going on, boys?”
“You’re a sharp newspaperman,” Wit complimented. “I am interested in the murder, because I think it’s why the Brightmans moved to New York. I think the murder had a profound effect in shaping Steven Brightman. I think it’s an angle that will work for me in the piece.”
Farr bought it. “You’re right. A few families moved away soon after the murder. If you want more info on the murder, I’d talk to Phil Malloy over at the municipal building. He’s mayor now, but back then he was a local cop. When we get back to the Herald, I’ll put a call in to him if you’d like.”
Wit clapped Farr on the shoulder. “That would be great. Thank you. May I just ask you one or two more questions, Mike?”
“Shoot, Wit.”
“The stories said Carl Stipe was coming from a friend’s house and using these woods as a shortcut. From whose house was he coming?”
Farr pointed again. “See that house right there, the one next door to where the Brightmans lived?”
Wit and I both said that we did.
“That was Ronny Bishop’s house. That’s where the kid was coming home from. They were one of the families that left after the murder. I guess I couldn’t blame them.”
There really wasn’t very much more for us to do there in the woods between the pool club and the reservoir. We took a ride past the houses the Brightmans, Stipes, and Bishops had lived in. Carl Stipe’s mother still lived in the big Tudor on Reservoir Road. We saw her outside, collecting her mail. I stopped the car and watched her retreat back into her home. My heart ached for her. I wondered what she believed about her son’s death.
Wit treated us to lunch at a pub in a neighboring town. Here Farr gave us as much background on Brightman as he could. Which, frankly, wasn’t much. Reporters, he said, weren’t in the habit of researching eleven- and twelve-year-old kids. Steven Brightman, as it happened, had been a good student, a friendly kid who played Little League. The reporter seemed to know a great deal more about Brightman’s dad, the big-time lawyer. I asked if Farr remembered the other families who had moved away in the wake of the murder. He wrote out a list of four or five names.
As we drove the old reporter back to the Herald, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. Although the proximity of Brightman’s house to the crime scene and the Bishop kid’s home was interesting, there was nothing in what Farr had told us to tie Brightman closer to the murder itself. Without something more substantial, all the intricate scenarios I had constructed would collapse under their own weight.
Micah Farr was good to his word and rang up the mayor on our behalf. The mayor was thrilled at the prospect of speaking to someone like Wit. Any good press for Steven Brightman was good press for him and his town. Three months ago, when Brightman’s name was still tainted by Moira Heaton’s disappearance, the mayor would probably have hung up on Farr. How quickly things change. Farr did warn the mayor that we might ask about the Stipe murder, but downplayed our interest. He told us to come ahead just the same.
The municipal building was a converted school building around the corner from the Herald. The mayor’s office was up on the second floor. Like the rest of Hallworth, the mayor’s office was clean, well appointed, but unpretentious. Flags, portraits of past mayors, and all manner of certificates and medals were on display. After the introductions, I found my eyes searching out Mayor Stipe’s portrait. He was a handsome man with distant eyes. My guess was he’d sat for the painting while the pain of his boy’s death was still quite fresh. I thought of his wife, retrieving the mail. I felt much more sorry for her. I joined Wit across from the mayor’s desk.
Phil Malloy was a loquacious fellow in his late forties who sported a thick gray mustache and a spare tire at what had once been his waistline. He was glad we were in town, glad to be mayor, glad to help. Phil was glad about most things. Unfortunately, gladness wasn’t much of a replacement for substance. He had very little to tell us about Steven Brightman, but he would be glad to dig up his junior high school yearbook, glad to put us in touch with his old teachers, glad to give us another tour of the town.
He was slightly more informative about the Stipe murder, but not much. Within hours of finding the boy’s body, the local cops had handed off to the state police. Unlike Farr, the mayor thought Martz had done it. What else would he think? This was his town now. If he had doubts about Martz’s guilt, he wasn’t saying. He didn’t know if the state police ever considered other suspects or if they had alternate theories, but, he assured us, he would have been glad to share them if he’d known of any.
As the mayor rambled, Wit trying to seem interested, I found myself losing hope. We couldn’t afford to walk out of Hallworth empty-handed. In a town this size, word of Wit’s visit would spread fast. Even if we could count on Micah Farr not to mention it in the Herald, Malloy struck me as the kind of guy to spend the rest of the afternoon on the phone telling everyone he knew. And once word spread through town, it would spread out of town. Then we were finished. We had a one-day head start and we were on the verge of blowing it. The time for caution, I decided without consulting Wit, had passed. There was one fact about the Stipe murder that no one had mentioned: the two boys who’d seen the man ride out of the woods on a bicycle. I had a hunch and took my shot.
“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor,” I interrupted, pulling out the detective’s shield which would never actually be mine, “I’m Detective Prager from the NYPD and I need your help.”
I’m not sure who looked more surprised, Wit or Malloy. Wit kept quiet and let me play my hand. He, too, recognized that we needed to come away from today’s visit with something tangible beyond scenarios and suspicions.
“I’m a little confused,” Malloy confessed, “but I’ll be glad to help any way I can.”
Gee, what a surprise.
“I’m afraid I’ve enlisted Mr. Fenn in a bit of deception, and I hope you won’t hold that against him,” I continued. “I work cold cases, Mr. Mayor. And we’ve just had a very cold case heat up-two, actually. About the time of the Stipe homicide here, we had two similar cases in the Bronx. They’ve gone unsolved all these years, but recently, we received an anonymous tip that led us to a likely suspect. The thing of it is, we don’t have anyone who can eyeball this guy. So what I was hoping was I could tie our cases to your case and clear them all up.”
“Anything I can do, I will.” Malloy was so pumped up at that moment, I think he could have chewed through steel plate.
“You had two witnesses see a man leave the wooded area around the reservoir on bicycle, right?”
The mayor was impressed. “You did your homework, I see.”
“So, if they can ID our suspect as the man they saw that day …”
Malloy fairly jumped out of his seat. “Holy cow!” Then, almost immediately, he deflated. “I really can’t tell you who they-”
“I understand,” I said, empathetic as hell. “The kids were minors, and to protect them, their identities were kept secret. I admire you, Mr. Mayor, for keeping your oath as a cop, but we’re talking three dead little boys here. Now, I don’t need you to go all the way. I know that one of the boys who saw the man that day was Steven Brightman. I’ve already talked to him about it and he’s agreed to view a lineup.”
“How’d you find out?” The mayor was flabbergasted.
I made it up, putz! “We have our ways,” I answered. “But what I need from you is the other kid’s name. If we can get him to positively ID our suspect, we’re-”
“I’m sorry, Detective Prager, but-”
“Listen, Phil, I understand about giving your word.”
“It’s not that. Kyle Lawrence was the other kid’s name,” Malloy said without hesitation. “It’s just that he’s dead.”
“When?”
“About two years ago. Some weird disease. He was a heroin junkie.”
“Two years ago, you say,” I repeated almost unconsciously. There was another one of those coincidences.
“Yup, Detective Prager, two years. Micah’ll have the exact date. I’m sorry if I ruined your case for you.”
“That’s okay,” I assured him, shaking his hand. “Brightman might be enough. But now I need something else from you, Mr. Mayor.”
“Name it.”
“You’ve kept those names secret all these years and now I need you to keep the subject of our little conversation a secret. Now that we’re down to one witness, we can’t afford to have Steven Brightman compromised in any way. I’m sure you understand. So, if anyone should ask, please say Mr. Fenn was here asking only about the wholesomeness of Hallworth and how it might have helped shape Steven Brightman’s life. Please don’t even mention the Stipe case.”
“You have my word.”
“Again, Mr. Mayor, thanks for the help.”
“Glad to do it.”
Wit didn’t say a word until we had exited the converted schoolhouse. He realized the risk I had taken. The stakes of the game had just been raised. It wasn’t until we got back to my car that he spoke up.
“That was quite an improvisation. My compliments. But that little act in there, it could blow up in your face. You understand that?”
“Next to murder, what does it matter?”
“Murder! Moe, yes we will leave town with a little bit more information than we arrived with, but we’re a million miles away from murder.”
“We’ll see. Do you have that list Farr gave us with the names of the families who moved out of town after Carl Stipe’s death? Read off the names.”
Wit complied: “Kenworth, Hitner, Lawrence-”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” I said.
“It proves nothing.”
“I’m sure Kyle Lawrence’s death started the chain of events that led me here. It’s a place to start.”
“Start what, Moe? That was twenty-seven years ago. Lawrence is dead. The case is closed to almost everyone’s satisfaction.”
“Is it? Let’s go ask Carl Stipe’s mother.”
“Point well taken. However, I would be remiss not to alert you to the fact that in spite of your rousing speech in the mayor’s office, word is going to leak back to Brightman.”
“I’m not an idiot, Wit. I know that. When it leaks back to him, we’ll just have to figure out how to use it.”
It was turning dusk when we plopped ourselves back in my car parked in front of the Hallworth Herald. I turned the ignition and pulled the transmission into drive, but Wit clamped his hand around my right forearm.
“Wait! Farr’s niece is waving us into the office.”
I put it back in park and left the car running. “You stay here, okay?”
Wit didn’t protest. He was tired and badly in need of a drink. In any case, after the little coup I’d pulled off in the mayor’s office, I think he trusted me to deal with Annie.
She was alone in the smoky office, a new cigarette dangling from her lower lip. Sitting across from her, I noticed that she was actually attractive in a bohemian sort of way. She wore no makeup, and her washed-out brown hair was just drooped over her rounded shoulders. The limp hair disguised sparkly brown eyes, a pleasantly sloped nose, and a strong jaw. As close as I was, I now figured Annie to be in her early forties.
“My uncle treats me like I’m not here, and I guess sometimes I let him,” she said. “I should have introduced myself before.”
“That’s okay. My name’s Moe Prager.”
“I know who you are and so does my uncle Micah. You didn’t let that aw-shucks small-town-reporter act fool you, did you? You’re that investigator from the city that cleared Steven Brightman.”
“How’d-”
“I know this is Jersey, Mr. Prager, but we get the same TV stations as you. That was big news in this town. My uncle and I watched the news conference when they announced that you had found that woman’s killer. It was front page of the Herald the following day.”
“Is that what you wanted to tell me, that my trying to keep a low profile didn’t work?”
“No, I wanted to tell you some things about Steven Brightman.”
I tried not to react, but in trying, I gave myself away. I went with it. “What about him? To hear the people around here tell it, he was a nice boy who got good marks and played Little League.”
“That’s because you talked to people who were adults when we were kids. Not that Steven was public enemy number one or anything, but he was a fourteen-year-old boy once.”
I recalled what her uncle had said to us earlier in the day about how reporters were ill-equipped to research the lives of kids.
“Surprise me, Annie,” I challenged her.
“Steven was in a gang.”
My first reaction was to laugh at her, but I didn’t. I had been a fourteen-year-old boy once myself. I remembered the intense desire to belong. It almost didn’t matter to what, as long as my friends belonged too, and I was accepted. The intensity dimmed after I grew out of my awkwardness and girls appeared on the horizon.
Annie misread my silence. “Not a gang like in the city. There were no Sharks and Jets in Hallworth. It wasn’t the Episcopalians rumbling with the Lutherans on Railroad Avenue at midnight. Maybe ‘gang’ isn’t the right word. It was more of an ‘us’ and ‘them’ thing.”
“Did they have a name, this gang?”
“The James Deans. The JDs for short.”
“Juvenile delinquents. How perfectly fifties.”
“But it was the fifties, Mr. Prager, and James Dean was a Hallworth kind of antihero. The boys in an affluent town like this couldn’t relate to guys who played it tough like Brando or Lee Marvin or even Vic Morrow, but James Dean … And when he died in a car crash, it just sealed the deal. You’re probably a little too young to remember the stir he caused. In college, I wrote a paper comparing his career to that of the Romantic poets. I mean ‘romantic’ in the sense of the long ago-”
“-and the far away. Byron, Shelley, Keats, and company. Some cops go to college, Annie.”
She apologized. “I didn’t mean to condescend. Forgive me.”
“Forget it. So Brightman was in this club or gang or whatever. Do you remember any of the other kids who were in the JDs?”
“There weren’t many,” she said, lighting up another cigarette. “Let’s see, there was Jeffrey Anderson, Michael Day, Kyle Lawrence, and Pete Ryder.”
“So few. Why?”
“Even in the midst of the baby boom, Hallworth was a small town. And like you said, Mr. Prager, it was the fifties. Conformity was still like everyone’s second religion.”
“Do any of the other James Deans still live in town?”
“Kyle died a few years back. Pete Ryder went to West Point and was killed during the Tet offensive. Jeff Anderson left years ago, California someplace, but I’m pretty sure Mike Day’s still around.”
“How sure?”
“I used to be married to the prick.”
The houses on Conover Street were the smallest houses in Hallworth, but their lawns were just as green and their hedges as trim as in the rest of town. Maybe Micah Farr wasn’t kidding about the lawn police. I wouldn’t know. Local code enforcement isn’t a huge deal in Brooklyn. There’s such a mishmash of tastelessness and beauty in the County of Kings, it’s hard to discern where the one started and the other one ended.
Number 23 Conover was a clapboarded saltbox set on a little bluff. Darkness had come in force, and climbing the steps up from the street was a bit of a challenge for Wit and me. Wit looked haggard, his age and addiction to alcohol showing in his face and posture. I wasn’t too sure I would have withstood a close inspection myself. It had been a tiring day, long on hints and traces, but short on substance. Mike Day met us at the front door. Annie had called ahead.
He didn’t look anything like I’d expected he would, given the appearance of his ex-wife. Mike stood an inch above six feet. He was still quite tan, athletic, good-looking, dressed in chinos and a golf shirt embroidered with the name of a big Wall Street brokerage. He welcomed us in and offered us drinks. I thought Wit might click his heels and scream, “Hallelujah, praise the Lord.” I took a beer. Wit made do with a few fingers of Maker’s Mark.
“So, gentlemen, Annie tells me you think I might be able to help you,” he said, showing us into his living room.
“Maybe. Wit’s doing a follow-up piece for Esquire on an old friend of yours.”
Day’s face brightened. “Stevie’s going places now that that ugliness has been cleared up. I always knew he would. He has some set of balls on him.”
“Does he?” Wit, now feeling his oats, joined the conversation. Day proceeded to regale us with tales of the young Steven Brightman’s bravery and daring. He swam across the reservoir at the age of nine even though it was illegal and most adults wouldn’t have dared. He jumped off the rocks at Indian Falls into Iron Creek although the creek was only a few feet deep at most points.
“You see, the thing about Stevie was, he did it, but didn’t expect the rest of us to follow. It was okay if we did and okay if we didn’t. What he did was to challenge himself, not us. I always knew he had big things ahead of him.”
Wit and I let Day go on as long as he wanted, hoping that he’d arrive at a natural segue into the subject of the James Deans. Unfortunately, we had let that opportunity slip by. We were forced instead to listen to an interminable sermon on the glories of junk bonds, the torturous saga of his marriage to Annie, and his take on the failures of the football Giants.
“You know, Mike,” I interrupted, “Annie mentioned something to me about a group you and Brightman and a few other guys were in that I found pretty intriguing.”
He seemed surprised, if not upset. “Oh, yeah, what group was that?”
“The James Deans.”
“The James fucking Deans.” He laughed quietly, a smile that was part joy, part embarrassment washing over his handsome face. “I haven’t thought about the James Deans in twenty-five years. Man, we thought we were so cool.”
“Who were the James Deans, exactly? Annie wasn’t sure,” I lied.
“There was me and Stevie, of course, and Kyle Lawrence and Pete Ryder. Oh, yeah, and Jeff Anderson, too.”
He repeated the sad particulars of the tragedies that had befallen the group. Day, too, said they thought of themselves as a gang, but really weren’t. His riffs on being a fourteen-year-old boy sounded awfully like my own thoughts.
“We only ever had to do one thing that even remotely resembled a gang,” he said, completely without guile.
“What was that?” I asked.
For the first time Mike Day hesitated. “To get into the gang, you had to … um … take a scalp.”
“A scalp!” Wit started.
“Not a scalp scalp, not a real scalp.”
I could see Day regretted having brought it up, but I couldn’t let that get in the way. “Explain that scalp thing or it’s gonna end up in some national magazine and that won’t be good for anybody. You know what’ll happen if you don’t tell us. You were married to a reporter, for chrissakes!”
“Don’t remind me. Well, the scalp thing is what we called it, but what it meant was you had to steal something to get into the James Deans. You know, committing an act of defiance. I hope this isn’t going to cause Stevie any trouble.”
Wit reassured him. “Not at all, Mr. Day. It’s just background information. I won’t use it in my piece, so feel free to continue. You’ll notice, I’m not taking any notes.”
Mike Day breathed a big sigh of relief.
I was curious. “Do you remember what each member stole?”
He thought about it. Giggled. Flushed red. “I stole a box of sanitary napkins from Wiggman’s Pharmacy on Terrace Street. Jeff took his father’s watch. I didn’t think that should count.”
“Too easy,” I said.
“Exactly,” Day seconded. “Jeff always was a bit of a pussy, but Stevie said it counted.”
“The others?” Wit prompted.
“Pete stole Mr. Hart’s glasses right off the rostrum at band practice. Stevie took the school mascot, the Hallworth Harrier, from the hallway outside the gym. It wasn’t a real hawk, just a statue of one.”
“That leaves Kyle,” I reminded him. “What did he take?”
“You know, I don’t know. That’s funny, I forgot that. We never did find out what Kyle took, but Stevie vouched for him. He said that he was there and saw Kyle do it and that was good enough for us. Stevie’s word was always good enough for us.”
Wit and I exchanged sick, knowing glances. Mike Day, Pete Ryder, and Jeffrey Anderson might not have had a clue as to what Kyle Lawrence had stolen in the presence of Steven Brightman, but Wit did, and so did I. Knowing and proving, however, are not synonymous. We were still a long way from proving.