Chapter 26. At the Bake Shop
The rest of that day and evening are kind of a blur. I’m sure I looked pretty funny, scrambling up that trail on my hands and knees and screaming, but my buddies stopped laughing when they realized what I was screaming about. Then we just stood there, shivering, the ten or so kids who hadn’t gone home yet, while we waited for the cops to show up.
It didn’t take long for the police cruiser to get there, and, when they realized there really was a dead body at the bottom of the slope, they called for more men right away. We didn’t have that many cops in Essex, but they called in some County Sheriffs to help them cordon off the area and went to work. Junior arrived to take charge, as the Chief was unavailable, and he quickly decided that all the kids needed to leave except me.
Rollo’s Dad showed up, and took Rollo, Tom, Larry, and Roy back home, and the other kids drifted away on foot. I talked to Junior for a few minutes, then he told one of the patrolmen to drive me to the station, and called in to the dispatcher and told her to call my parents and have them meet me at the station.
I had to make a statement, but we had to wait for my parents to show up. When they got there, we all sat down and I dictated my statement to the secretary/dispatcher. She had to stop occasionally to take phone calls, so it took about forty minutes. My parents had assumed when they got the call that I was in trouble again, but they were told when they arrived what had happened, so they just sat and listened, my Mom wiping her eyes and Dad looking very sad.
The reporters started showing up before I was finished, and one of them recognized me when he saw me sitting in the office. When we came out, they immediately starting badgering my parents and me with questions, like, “You’re one of the missing boys, aren’t you?” and “Is this murder related to the unsolved disappearance of the four boys?” and “You’re his parents, aren’t you? What can you tell us?” It was hard for Mom and Dad, because, with most of the police force at the crime scene, there was only one officer and the dispatcher there. But they had learned pretty well how to fend off questions, and they didn’t have any answers, anyway.
They hustled me out of there as soon as they could, and I kept my mouth shut. The Free Press and Channel Three would get their story, but not from me.
We had toasted cheese sandwiches for supper, and my Mom made cocoa for everyone before we settled down to watch the Ed Sullivan Show. It was the first ever appearance of The Supremes on the show that night, but I couldn’t see anything but Miss Delisle’s face, so I went to bed early.
I had never seen a dead body before, and it wasn’t just a dead body. It was Miss Delisle, a beautiful young woman who had been kind to me, and who seemingly had a bright future ahead of her. While I lay awake, I kept trying to picture her face alive and sparkling, but all I could see was that unchanging expression of astonishment on her frozen face.
The next morning, the shit really hit the fan. The phone wouldn’t stop ringing. My Dad had gotten a new phone number after the “missing boys” incident, but it didn’t take long before the reporters got a hold of it. The phone company refused to do anything for us without charging an outrageous fee, and that just pissed my Dad off. He was working; school was on break, of course, but he had taken a part-time job, as he always did between semesters, so Mom had to deal with the phone calls herself. By eight o’clock, she decided to just leave it off the hook.
Just before nine, Sergeant Slingerland showed up at our door, with a patrolman I didn’t know by name. He was pretty grumpy, because he had tried to call and gotten a busy signal over and over again. It turned out that Chief Mulrooney, who was out of town, had called in when he got the news, and put Slingerland in charge of the investigation, rather than Junior, until he could get back to take over.
I had given a statement already, and my Mom wasn’t too happy about me having to talk to the cops again, but “Shit-Slinger” insisted that he needed to interrogate me for additional information. So we sat down at the dining room table for almost an hour. He asked me all kinds of questions about Miss Delisle, and about the afternoon on High School Hill. Most of what I said was a repeat of my written statement, but that didn’t seem to matter. The patrolman wrote notes about everything I said.
When they were leaving, my Mom said something to Slinger about him treating me almost as if I were a suspect. He didn’t say anything, but he looked at me as if he really believed I was capable of murdering my teacher.
Answering all those questions from Slingerland had kind of brought me out of my gloomy daze. Not that I wasn’t still shocked and really, really sad about it; that wouldn’t go away. But I started thinking more about the details of her death and the vital question – who murdered Sally Delisle?
I lay on my bed for a while, staring at the ceiling while I pondered. It didn’t cross my mind at that time that I could have any role in solving her murder, but I knew one thing – I wanted to know who had done this foul deed.
I got up and went downstairs to the telephone, which was still off the hook. I picked up the phone and set it on its cradle and it immediately started ringing. I dodged a couple of calls before there was a pause long enough for me to dial out. I called Win and asked him to meet me at the Bake Shop after lunch.
It took a little maneuvering to get there unseen. I didn’t want to go by the Police Station, or by the crime scene, figuring there might be reporters at both places. But I knew my way around Essex Junction as well as any kid, and going through back yards and over fences was second nature to me, even with all of the snow.
I got to the Best Ever Bake Shop to find Win already there, talking with Amy Ducharme. She smiled at me as I sat down, and immediately questioned me, her face incredulous.
“It was you who found her?”
I just nodded.
“That must have been awful!”
I nodded again. There really was nothing to say. Amy sighed sympathetically, and said, “Listen, I’ll get you guys a couple of hot chocolates and you can tell me all about it.” She hurried away to fix our HCs.
I told Win everything that had happened after I left the school in the police car; the statement at the station, the reporters, and the interrogation by Slinger that morning.
“That fat bastard,” he said with contempt, “I can’t believe they put him in charge.”
“I know; he couldn’t find his way out of a closet, and he’s supposed to solve a murder?”
Amy arrived with our hot chocolates.
“Have they said yet if she was murdered?” she asked.
I must have looked very surprised, because she quickly went on to say, “I mean, she might have fallen down that hill by accident. Or she might have even killed herself.”
I really hadn’t considered either of those possibilities.
“You didn’t see her there that morning, did you?” she asked. “Did anybody see her at the school that day before you found her?”
“Oh, no,” I said, “she must have been there all night. She was totally covered with snow, and there were no tracks around her.” I turned to Win. “Right?”
“That’s right,” Win said, “there were no boot marks or anything. You were the first one down that trail, and the snow was untouched.”
“So she had to have been there before most of the snow fell; maybe all of it. Since sometime Saturday afternoon.”
Now there was a worried look on Amy’s face. “But she was here Saturday afternoon.”
“What? She was here?” I asked, very surprised, “I didn’t even know you knew her.”
“Well, I’ve waited on her a few times, but I only work weekends while we’re in school. But the other girls told me she would come in sometimes during the week. See, she lived in Burlington, and she would take the bus, but sometimes she would spend the night with a friend. Her friend – I think her name is Jane - rents an apartment across the street and sometimes Miss Delisle would stay with her. Sometimes she would come in for coffee on Saturday morning before she went back to Burlington. But last Saturday she came in in the afternoon.”
So she had been here, in the Bake Shop, while we were at the movies.
“Amy,” I asked, “did you talk to her on Saturday? Do you know why she was here?”
She shook her head. “Like I said, I knew who she was, but I’d only seen her a few times, so we weren’t exactly friends. But she was with your friends; you should ask them.”
“Our friends?” Win asked, and we looked at each other, puzzled.
“Yeah,” she said, “those two girls I’ve seen you talking to. They’re in your class, aren’t they? The dark-haired one with glasses, and the little blonde who’s always with her?”
“You mean Kate and Jackie?”
“Yeah, that’s them. They were sitting with Miss Delisle.”
Well, now, this was something we were going to have to check out. We quickly decided to see if we could talk to one or both of them today. The Bake Shop had a pay phone for customers, and we pulled coins out to see if we could afford a call as well as our hot chocolates, but Amy just waved her hand, and said, “Don’t worry about it; go ahead and make your call.” So Win went to the phone to see if he could reach Kate or Jackie while I talked to Amy.
“You haven’t talked to the cops yet, have you?” I asked her.
“No,” she said, shaking her head, “They don’t know she was in here, and they won’t know unless they ask me.”
I was feeling a little uncomfortable about that.
“Amy, I know you don’t want to get involved, especially if it means talking to Slingerland…”
“Fat, mean and stupid Slingerland; he’s a jerk, and he doesn’t tip. A lot of the cops are like that; they think they’re entitled to free coffee, and they don’t even leave a tip. They’re just deadbeats, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Well, the thing is, Amy, they’re bound to find out eventually that Miss Delisle was in here, and if they think you deliberately withheld information, you could be in trouble.”
She frowned and pouted, not happy about that. Then her face brightened up as she asked, “What about Junior? I could talk to him.”
“He’s not the one in charge of the case, though; Shit-Slinger is.”
“But you guys are buddies with Junior; I’m seen you talking to him. You could fix it so I can talk to him instead of Shit-Slinger.”
I was thinking that she greatly over-estimated my ability to “fix” things, but she was smiling at me in a way that guaranteed results, so I mumbled that I would do my best.
Win came back smiling.
“I got Kate at home. She’s really anxious to talk to us, and Jackie’s with her, so they’re coming right over.”
“They’re coming here now?”
“Yeah. Kate’s Mom is driving them over, so they’ll be here in a few minutes.”
Most times, the Bake Shop wouldn’t have been the best place to have a private conversation about a murder, but, on a Monday afternoon, it was almost empty. Amy was in the back, having a shouting match with one of her cousins in the kitchen, when Kate and Jackie walked in, all bundled up in their winter outfits. They took off their coats and sat down beside us at the counter as Amy sauntered back in.
The girls were pretty gloomy, for obvious reasons. They had been closer to Miss Delisle than anyone in school, pupil or teacher, and no twelve-year-old could have a friend murdered and not be shaken by it.
Amy said hello to them and asked if they wanted hot chocolates, too, which they did.
Kate wanted to know first off exactly what had happened at the school on Sunday; who was there and what we had seen and how I ended up sliding into Sally Delisle’s body. So Win and I took turns setting the scene and describing the sequence of events.
Amy brought the hot drinks, including refills for Win and me, and she lingered to hear the conversation. The girls seemed a little uncomfortable with Amy listening, so I filled them in on our conversation and insisted that we could trust Amy. It may have been a bit of a leap of faith on my part, but I couldn’t conceive of my dream girl being less than perfect.
“How did she look?” Jackie asked, “I mean, could you see what happened to her?”
I shook my head. “All I could see was her face. Her face was perfect, just like it always was, except that it was frozen, and she looked…” and I struggled for the right word… “surprised. I suppose I should have looked around more, but, I was kind of shocked.”
They all just kind of looked away, probably imagining what they would have done. Win broke the silence after a minute.
“Like Amy was saying before, we don’t know for certain yet that she was murdered. It could have been an accident or a suicide.”
Kate and Jackie both shook their heads.
“Possibly an accident,” Kate said, “if she fell down the hill and hit her head on something, but not suicide.”
“Not suicide,” Jackie echoed.
“She was pretty agitated, wasn’t she?” Amy asked, “When you met her on Saturday?”
“Agitated, yes,” Jackie replied, “but not depressed, or suicidal. Besides, she had plans; she showed us the ticket.”
“She had a plane ticket in her purse, for Hawaii,” Kate explained, “she was flying out on Tuesday, tomorrow.”
“Hawaii?” Amy asked, in open-mouthed awe.
Kate nodded. “It’s complicated. She has a really messed up family, which sort of explains why she spent Christmas in Burlington. Her parents are divorced, and they refuse to see each other, or even be in the same city, apparently. Her Dad is a big shot executive with Honda, and he travels back and forth between Los Angeles and Tokyo. Her Mom is a missionary in Fiji. So her Dad bought Sally a ticket to Hawaii, and he’s meeting her there…” she paused to correct herself, “I mean he was supposed to meet her there Wednesday, then fly back to Tokyo on the weekend before her Mom arrives next Monday. Then she would have spent a week with her Mom before flying back to Burlington.”
“She told you all this on Saturday?” I asked.
“Well, we knew some of it already,” Kate replied, “Sally’s always liked to talk to us. But she had asked us on Wednesday if we would meet her Saturday. She said she had to come in to Essex and stop at the school for a while, so we arranged to meet here about two o’clock.”
“I wondered,” Win said, “why she would be at the school the day after Christmas, and why would anybody be there?”
“Ben was always there,” Jackie said.
Kate nodded. “She made sure before she left on Wednesday that Old Ben would be there. He lives right across the street, you know. He said he was ‘doing some of the floors,’ whatever that means, over the break, so he’d be there.”
“But why was she there?”
“Well, she had some paperwork to leave for Mrs. Rock, and she hadn’t quite finished it. She could have left it until after the break, but she wouldn’t have been back from Hawaii for two weeks. So she decided to get it done before she left.”
“And this way,” Jackie added, “she wouldn’t have to see her again. Mrs. Rock, I mean.”
“Okay,” I said, “so why don’t you just tell us what happened on Saturday?”
Jackie nodded to Kate, who liked to talk a lot more than Jackie did.
“Well,” Kate began, “we met up here at about two o’clock. She had already been to the school and left her paperwork in the teachers’ room for Mrs. Rock. She was relieved to have that all over with, and glad that she would never have to see her again. Still, Mrs. Rock would have to write up her evaluation, so she was nervous about that, and she was nervous about the letter she had left for Mrs. Rock with her paperwork. You see, she had expected to get in big trouble about the last day, about hugging all the kids and being so friendly with us. Mrs. Rock was definitely furious about it, but, rather than a hot, raging anger, it was a cold, quiet anger, and Sally wasn’t sure how to read it.
“She thought she should apologize, but she wanted to strike just the right note; deferential, but confident. She was sure that all of her teaching, both in the classroom and doing the correcting of homework and quizzes was first rate, so she didn’t want to be selling herself short. At one point, she decided she should go back and rewrite the letter, but then she changed her mind again.” Kate stopped to sip her hot chocolate.
“She was upset with Roger, too,” Jackie added.
“Yeah, she was,” Kate continued, “She wouldn’t tell us exactly what was going on, but she seemed scared.”
“Scared of Roger?” I asked.
“Who’s Roger?” Amy asked.
“Her boyfriend,” Kate replied, “No, I don’t think she was scared of him. Well, maybe a little bit. Whatever he was doing, she thought it was dangerous, and she didn’t want anything to do with it, but he wanted her to help.”
“So Roger’s still around?” Win asked.
“Oh, yes. He was here on Saturday. Well, not here at the Bake Shop, but here in Essex. He drove Sally in from Burlington and dropped her off at Jane’s apartment, across the street. He was supposed to pick her up around four.”
“Did he come back?” Amy asked.
Kate shrugged. “I don’t know. When we said goodbye, it was, I don’t know, quarter-to-three, almost three, somewhere in there, and she had decided that the letter was fine and she was just going straight back to Jane’s. That’s the last we saw of her.” Some of the gloom seemed to come back to everyone when she said that.
There was more muffled shouting from the kitchen, and Amy went back to see what was going on. We were all silent for a minute. I was thinking about the last time I saw Miss Delisle alive, and I’m sure the others were thinking similar thoughts.
“She must have gone back to the school,” Win said after a while.
I nodded. “She probably changed her mind again and went back.”
“That’s what I think,” Kate said, “When we left, it was getting colder, and it had started to snow, but it wasn’t too bad. She would have been back at the school in fifteen minutes, or so.”
“What if,” Jackie said, “she went back to Jane’s, Roger killed her there, and he drove to the school to dump her body? So it would look like she was killed at the school?”
That was the first time any of us had actually speculated on who had killed her, at least out loud, and we were a little taken aback.
“Then Jane would have known about it, or even been in on it,” Kate said, “That’s a little hard to believe.”
Amy had come back out of the kitchen, carrying something on a tray. She set the tray down at her coffee station, reached into a cooler for a can of whipped cream, and did some spraying. She brought the tray over, a smile on her face, and set it down on the counter. It held four dessert plates, each with a piece of chocolate cake, with chocolate frosting, topped with whipped cream.
We all had looks of astonished joy on our faces as she explained. “My stupid cousin messed up this cake, and we would have had to throw it out, so, you might as well eat it.”
We thanked her profusely as we dove into the cake, which didn’t look messed up to me; it just looked chocolate.
None of us were particularly good at not talking with our mouths full, except Jackie, so we continued the discussion while eating.
“Well,” I said, “it’s certainly possible that she was killed somewhere else, and it’s possible it was Roger, but I think we’ll know pretty soon if it was. Roger and Jane should be two of the first people the cops question, and they’ll certainly search her apartment.”
“Of course they will,” Kate adds, “and she’ll tell them that Sally was here that afternoon. Well, I think so; I’m not sure, but I’m assuming she told Jane she was meeting us here.” She turned towards Amy and asked, “Jane comes in here, doesn’t she?”
“Sure,” Amy replied, “Not a lot, but I know who she is. Brunette, shorter than Miss Delisle, not as pretty, but a nice figure.” She struck a pose, holding her hands on each side of her face, at chin level, as if holding up her hair. “Kind of a Lesley Gore hairdo.”
The girls laughed, and Kate said, “Yes, that’s her exactly.”
“They’ll want to talk to us, too,” Jackie says, “We need to tell them what we know.”
“Denny,” Kate asked me directly, “what do you think we should do?”
“Denny’s buddies with Junior, the good-looking police sergeant,” Amy said with a smile, “and he’s going to fix it so I can talk to him, and not that fatso Slingerland. Aren’t you, Denny?”
They all looked at me, and I grinned sort of stupidly. Win knew, of course, that I’d do anything to please Amy, and Kate had on that smile of hers that said she was reading my mind again. I hoped everybody couldn’t read me that easily.
“I, uhh, I’ll try to talk to Junior tonight or tomorrow,” I said, “and I’ll just tell him that I know some people who have information for him, and that they’re just not sure if they should come forward or wait. And that they’d like to talk to him. Okay?”