Chapter 28 - Jane
The next day, Thursday the 31st, Tom, Win, Rollo and I went down to Burlington to watch “A Hard Day’s Night” again. There wasn’t much of our vacation left, and we wanted to catch the movie a second time while we had the chance.
We managed to get there without being thrown off the bus, although Rollo’s overactive ass caused considerable distress to some riders, and great amusement to us. The same issue arose in the theater, although, with so many kids in the audience and the volume of the film, no one was able to identify the culprit except us, of course.
The post-movie conversation moved back and forth between discussion of the individual songs and our personal opinions of the plot and the acting. We all thought the boys were great and that they came across just as we thought they should. Frankly, we didn’t care much about the other actors and the plot. As for the songs, we came to the consensus opinion that “Can’t Buy Me Love,” which had, of course, been Number One on the charts for five weeks in April and May, would be regarded as the classic song of the film.
The song we sang on the way to the bus stop, though, was “If I Fell.” Tom and I had developed a pretty good harmony partnership, and that song was perfect for us. I sang the high, McCartney part and Tom sang Lennon’s lower part. We didn’t have all the lyrics down yet, but it was a work in progress. Win and Rollo tolerated us as we repeated the verses we knew over and over.
We reached the corner on Church Street where the Essex bus stopped. There was a young woman standing at the bus stop, wearing a scarlet and gold letter jacket, and she turned around to look at us as we approached, singing, then turned away again. There seemed to be something familiar about her, but I didn’t think about it, as the guys were talking to me.
We were talking about pre-movie Beatles songs, specifically who sang lead on which songs, when the bus arrived and we lined up behind the woman I had noticed, who was the only other person waiting for the bus. As she paid her fare and turned left to find a seat, I suddenly realized who she was. It was Miss Delisle’s friend, Jane.
I nudged Win and whispered to him as we followed Tom and Rollo onto the bus. He understood immediately that we needed to try to talk to her if we could. As soon as we were on, he whispered to Tom and to Rollo. We didn’t have time to plan anything, but Jane had walked to the back of the bus, which was helpful, and we followed to take seats as near her as we could. There were only two other people on the bus, near the front, so, if we could get her to talk to us, we could have a nearly private conversation.
She looked briefly at the four of us as we settled into seats, then turned back to the magazine she had pulled out of her bag. I knew I had to say something if we had any hope of her talking to us.
“Excuse me,” I asked politely, “are you Jane Alberts?”
She looked me right in the eye, not alarmed, but surprised, and said nothing.
“We’re friends of Sally’s,” I explained, “She was our student teacher.”
Her expression softened a little, but she still didn’t say anything. Why would she want to talk to a bunch of kids, anyway?
“I don’t mean to bother you,” I went on, “It’s just, well, she was our favorite. She was really good to us.”
Jane smiled sadly as she looked at the four of us, then her face changed to a quizzical expression.
“Are you the kids that went missing?”
I smiled back at her, and we all grinned a little. “Yeah, that’s us,” I said, “We’re the troublemakers.”
She laughed, and her round face was quite charming when lit up by a laugh.
“Sally got such a kick out of you guys! She always had a soft spot for the rebels.”
Amy had described Jane perfectly that day in the Bake Shop; she wasn’t beautiful, like Sally Delisle, but nice enough to look at, and her shape was really nice. I could see that Tom was especially impressed with her figure, and he was determined to talk to her.
“I see you’re reading Billboard” he said, “You must be a big music fan.”
“Of course,” she replied, “and you guys are obviously Beatles fans; not bad voices, too.”
“Thank you,” Tom said, “It’s what I want to do with my life. I’ve started guitar lessons, and I sing as often as I can. Are you a big Beatles fan?”
She shrugged. “They’re really good, I suppose, but I’m more into the West Coast scene.”
Tom fingered his glasses and pointed at her. “Of course,” he said, “That’s a Hawthorne High jacket, isn’t it? Did you go to school with the Wilson boys?”
“Yeah, I did, and Al, too. You know about the Beach Boys?”
“Oh, sure. They did their first professional recording in October of ’61, had a number fourteen national hit with ‘Surfin’ Safari’ in June of ’62, and hit the top ten with ‘Surfin’ USA’ in the spring of ’63. Their harmonies are the best in American rock and roll, and they are probably the top band in the country right now.”
“Not probably; they are for sure the best band in the country, maybe the whole world. How do you know so much about them?”
“Well, I try to keep up with what’s going on in music. So, are you friends with them?”
“Oh, yeah. Well, I know all the guys; I was a year behind Brian and Al Jardine in school and a year ahead of Denny. Denny’s the one I was close friends with. We used to hang out at Manhattan Beach together.”
“He’s the one who’s an actual surfer, right?” Win asked.
“Yeah, he’s a surfer,” she said with a laugh, “but that’s not why he was at the beach.”
We all looked puzzled. She grinned and explained, with a somewhat condescending smile, “Denny used to skip school and go to the beach because that’s where the girls are.”
We all smiled knowingly, trying to look mature and experienced.
My memory had been triggered when Tom said “Hawthorne High,” and now I knew where I had heard it.
“That’s where Roger Warren is from, isn’t it?”
Her face turned a little sour at that, and she said “Yeah, that’s right.”
“Umm, did you and Sally know him from High School?” I asked.
“I did; not Sally,” she replied, a little testily. “Why are you asking all these questions?”
“Well, we’re just trying to figure out what happened.”
“Why? Are you like the ‘Hardy Boys’ or something?”
I was a little nonplussed, then Win jumped in. “Look, Denny’s the one who found her body, so it’s kind of personal for him. For all of us, really; we all liked her, and she liked us, so it’s important to us to find out what really happened to her.”
It was kind of a touching moment, as Jane looked kindly at her late friend’s young admirers. Then Rollo farted.
Win and Tom both rolled their eyes, and I put my hands over my face. But Jane laughed out loud, and everything was fine.
“Yeah, Sally told me about you, too,” she said to Rollo, who just grinned. She turned back to me and said, “I’ve known Roger since we were six or seven. We grew up together. Sally was from Downey, over on the southeast side of L.A. I met her at a beach concert the summer of ’61, and found out she was going to UVM, too. We hit it off, and we talked a couple times over the summer, and said we’d try to room together at school. We had assigned roommates, but we both managed to ditch them after the first semester, and we roomed together the next two and a half years.
“Roger got into UVM for the second semester that first year, January of ’62. I introduced him to Sally, and she fell for him right away. Don’t ask me how.” Jane was upset now, and bitter. “That girl had everything; she was smart, talented, and so beautiful. Then she fell for a lying, scheming rat like Roger.”
Nobody said anything as she reached for a Kleenex in her purse and dabbed at her eyes. She had confirmed what we had pretty much suspected about Roger from the start, but now she was distraught, so we just waited.
After a minute, she had composed herself, but she didn’t want to talk anymore.
“Not here, not now,” she said, not unkindly.
We reached Essex Junction, and Tom and Rollo got off the bus by their neighborhood. Jane’s stop was right across Pearl Street from the shopping center, and Win and I got off at the same time. We stood kind of awkwardly on the sidewalk as the bus pulled away; I didn’t know exactly what to say to her. But she spoke before I had the chance anyway.
“Look,” she said, “I really appreciate that you guys care so much. Sally liked you guys, and I can see why.”
I was still trying to think of what to say, but, again, she beat me to it.
“There’s a lot more I can tell you; I just wasn’t all that comfortable talking on the bus. But if you still want to talk, you can come up for a little while. I can make some cocoa.”
The smile on her face was very inviting, and we quickly agreed.
Her apartment was up the back stairs of one of the big houses on Pearl Street, just a few steps from the bus stop. It was a small, three-room apartment, with one bedroom, a living room, and an eat-in kitchen. It was neat and well-kept; Jane had obviously outgrown the typical dormitory lifestyle.
We took our boots and coats off and sat at her kitchen table while she made cocoa in a saucepan.
“I like the Junction,” she said as she stirred, “I’ve been here since May, when I was done with school. I was in the Class of ’65, with Sally, but I quit after Junior year. I was working part-time as a secretary for a law firm, and they offered me full-time hours and training in legal terminology and forms, so I jumped at it.”
She carefully poured the hot cocoa into three mugs on the counter, and Win gallantly got up to help her carry them.
“Hold on a second,” she said, “and I’ll show you how we do cocoa on a windy night at the beach.” She reached for a bottle on a shelf and poured a big slug of California brandy into one of the mugs. Our eyes widened as she dripped a little into each of the other two mugs.
“Don’t worry,” she said with a laugh, “I’ve only put about a teaspoon in each of yours. It’s not enough to hurt you, but you’ll get some of the flavor and aroma.”
Wow! The cocoa with a little brandy was amazing. As Jane had promised, that little bit was enough to change the flavor, and the smell was wonderful. I always remembered that mug of cocoa, although it would be years before I was able to make it that way myself.
She beckoned us into the living room, and she sat in a big, comfortable chair while Win and I settled on the couch. The room was tastefully decorated with modern art prints, and Jane laughed as she saw us gazing around the room.
“You probably expected to see nothing but posters of surf bands, didn’t you? Well, I’ve got those in the bedroom. The Beach Boys, of course, and the Bel-Airs, and Jan & Dean. I’ve also got autographed photos from Lesley Gore and the Kingston Trio.”
“My oldest sister,” I told her, “she’s a sophomore at UVM; she was a big Trio fan, until Dave Guard quit. Now she won’t listen to them.”
She smiled knowingly. “Yeah, I miss Dave, too. He’s a hunk.” She took a big sip of her cocoa, then put her mug down and got serious. “So, what do you guys want to know?”
“Well,” I said, hopefully, “we’d love to hear more about Roger and Sally, but the most important thing is about what happened on Saturday. What did Sally tell you and what did Roger tell you, and what did they actually do, as far as you know?”
“Okay. Roger drove Sally here from Burlington; they had stayed at her apartment Friday night; and they got here about twelve-thirty. They both came in, and we sat around and drank coffee for about twenty minutes. They both seemed kind of tense, like they’d just had a fight or something. Roger didn’t talk much. Sally told me about her plans – she showed me the ticket to Hawaii her Dad had sent her, and she was happy about that.
“She had told me over the phone that she had to stop at the school, so I already knew that. That was the reason she had come into Essex. She was nervous about it, because she had to leave some kind of letter for Mrs. Rock. Not a long letter, just a note to go with her paperwork, but she wasn’t sure how to word it. Everything else was done; all her paperwork was in order, and it was all in her portfolio. So all she really had to do was figure out what to say and write the note. She said she would do that at the school.”
“What’s a portfolio?” Win asked.
“It’s a flat case, usually made of leather,” Jane replied, “At least the nice ones are. It has a flap that folds over like this. You use it to carry your drawings, if you’re an artist, or your papers.”
“So Roger wasn’t talking?” I asked.
“He hardly said anything. He was in a mood. After about fifteen or twenty minutes, he got up, brought his coffee cup to the sink, and said, ‘I’ll be back at four to pick you up.’ He put on his coat and was on his way. Sally got up and gave him a peck on the cheek, but he didn’t even respond, just opened the door and went. She sat back down, shaking her head, and I asked her what was wrong. She said they had had a fight, about his business, and he was still mad at her.”
I asked, hesitantly, “You mean, about…”
“Selling pot,” she finished for me. “He wanted her to help him, and she wanted nothing to do with it. She never did.”
Win and I looked at each other; this was what we wanted to know about.
“Look,” Jane said, “I know you guys don’t know anything about this; hardly anyone in Vermont does. But in California, it’s everywhere. At the beach, everybody smokes pot.”
“Did Sally?” I asked.
“Of course she’s tried it. But she didn’t like it; said it just made her stupid. Actually Roger didn’t smoke that much, at least around us. All he cared about was selling it.”
“So everything the Burlington cops said was right?” Win asked. “He’s been selling it for months?”
“Longer than that. The first summer, ’62, he brought a couple pounds back after summer break, and he sold all of it, so he started planning to do more. His other money-making schemes were keeping him busy during the school year, but he was saving up money to buy a big load of pot when he went back for the summer the next year.”
“Other money-making schemes?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah. He was a hustler, and he didn’t waste any time getting started after he got here. The first thing was the fake IDs, and that’s been big business right from the start. I mean, everybody wants one, right? He found a kid who was a great forger, really good at making the IDs, but he was too shy to sell them himself, so Roger became the middleman. Pretty soon they were so busy that he had to find another forger. He made a load of money from that, and then he got into selling term papers.”
She got up with her empty mug and went back to the stove. There was more cocoa in the saucepan, and she carried it over to the kitchen table. “Bring your cups back and we’ll finish this,” she said. We did, and we each got a half mug more of cocoa. “I’d better not put any more brandy in,” she said with a laugh, “I’ve got a date for New Year’s Eve tonight, and I don’t want to show up already drunk!”
We sat back down in the living room, and she continued about Roger’s shady business dealings.
“It was the term papers that finally got him in trouble. See, every student has to write papers, and a lot of them aren’t any good at it, or they’re just too lazy. So, again, Roger found a couple of kids who were really good at it, but didn’t want to do the selling. Roger couldn’t do any of this stuff himself; he was far too lazy for that, but, like I said, he was a hustler. He made even more money selling the term papers, but he got too greedy, and that’s what tripped him up.
“At least, that’s what I think happened. Last year, there was a kid from Connecticut, a rich kid in Pre-Law who was graduating in December. He had been accepted at Syracuse Law School for the spring semester, but he had to finish his term paper. The kid was desperate, and Roger knew it, so he charged him a hundred bucks for the paper. He usually only charged twenty-five or thirty, but he knew the kid had no choice. Well, Byron, that was the kid’s name, paid the price, but he was furious.
“I think he told his old man, who was a lawyer, and a grad of both UVM and Syracuse. I think he, the father, tipped off UVM about Roger, or had one of his rich buddies do it, so Byron wouldn’t get in trouble. When they expelled Roger in May, they had evidence going back to January.”
This was all fascinating to me and Win; we had no idea that stuff like this went on in college. Win turned to me with a grin.
“You should sell papers at school, Denny; you could make a killing.”
Jane laughed out loud. “Don’t you think you guys have made enough trouble for yourselves?”
I must admit that I was thinking the same thing; I probably could make a killing. But Jane was right; now was not the time to start a criminal enterprise.
“That’s great to know all this stuff about Roger,” I said, “but you must have talked some with Sally before she left to walk to the school.”
“Oh, yeah. She told me about the fight they had. Roger had a big sale set up for later in the week, for today, actually. He was going to sell all the pot he had left, and, like he always did, he tried to get Sally to ride along with him in the van, so they would look like a regular middle-class couple – not as conspicuous as just Roger by himself. But she hated doing that, and she refused to go with him. She was upset that he was angry with her, but she was scared, too. She knew he’d get caught eventually, and she was scared every time he went out to sell.”
“She was right to be scared,” Win said, “It was a trap, wasn’t it? The Burlington Chief was talking about having a major buy set up for New Year’s, and that must have been it.”
“That’s right,” I said, “Sally was right about that.”
“Fat lot of good it did her,” Jane said, very sadly. We were all silent for a bit, before she went on. “So, she said she was walking over to the school, and she’d be back before four. But she never came back.”
“Jane,” I asked, “did she tell you she was meeting two of her kids, two girls, at the Bake Shop before she came back?”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Did she meet them?”
“Yes, she did. We talked to them – they’re good friends of ours. They spent almost an hour with her, then she was supposed to come back here. But we think she changed her mind and walked back to the school to re-write the note to Mrs. Rock.”
“She must have; she never came back here.” She frowned, as if trying to remember something. “You know, I don’t think I told the cops about that. I forgot.”
“Well, they know. They interviewed Kate and Jackie and the waitress on Tuesday.”
“That makes sense. From what they asked me on Wednesday, it seemed like they knew a lot already about where she had been and when.” She smiled. “It was that good-looking cop who questioned me Wednesday afternoon; he was nice. Not like that bloated pig who questioned me Sunday night; he was an asshole!”
“Must have been Shit-Slinger,” Win said, with a laugh.
“What did you call him?”
“His name is Sergeant Slingerland,” I explained, “but all the kids in Essex call him ‘Shit-Slinger.’”
She laughed out loud and rocked back in her seat. “Perfect!” she squealed, “Shit-Slinger!”
We had a good laugh over that, and then I asked her about Roger.
“Yeah, he came back about quarter to four to pick up Sally. He was in a better mood, so we shot the shit for a while. Like I said, we grew up together, so I could always talk to him, even if I didn’t like what he was doing. When she didn’t show up, he decided that he’d better drive over to the school. He was gone for a while, maybe half an hour, then he came back. He said there was no sign of her, and he expected she had come back here, but, of course, she hadn’t.
“We didn’t know what to do at that point, but neither of us had any idea that she had been killed; that thought never crossed our minds. We just assumed that, for some reason, she’d gone straight back to Burlington. Roger said he thought she might have gotten a ride from someone, although I can’t imagine who. Anyway, he left to drive back downtown, and I figured she’d call me later. But it was Roger who called, about nine o’clock, and she still wasn’t home.
“I started to worry then. I called a couple other friends, but they just shrugged it off; said she was probably out at the bars and she’d call tomorrow. By that time I had decided to stay in anyway; everything closes early on Saturday in this crazy state. So I had a drink and read for a while, then went to bed.
“Sunday morning, I talked to Roger again and then, about ten o’clock, I called the Essex Police to report her missing. They told me to just keep trying other friends and anyone who might have seen her, and if I didn’t find her by the end of the day, I should come in and fill out a report. I was at home, getting ready to walk to the Police Station at about five o’clock when the phone rang. It was the police, telling me they’d found a body that fit the general description I’d given them, and would I be willing to identify if it was her or not. So they picked me up and brought me down to the hospital where they’d brought her.”
Jane stopped talking for a couple of minutes, the sadness overtaking her. We didn’t say anything either; just waited for her.
“So, that was it,” she continued, “They dropped me back here, and then, about eight o’clock, that fat sergeant came over to question me. He was here about an hour, I guess.”
“Did you, umm, tell him everything you told us?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? No, I told him nothing about Roger except that he drove her here and came back to pick her up. Listen, I’ve had plenty of experience with cops; they used to come down to the beach all the time, trying to bust us. Believe me, I know what to say and what not to say to a cop. Burlington PD talked to me, too, Tuesday night. They got nothing out of me.”
Her mood seemed to have changed, from happy to sad, and now almost belligerent. It wasn’t us she was angry at, though.
“Listen, guys, I think that’s about all I can tell you. Like I said, I appreciate how much you care about Sally and what happened to her. You can tell those two girls the same thing for me. Sally picked some good friends this time around.”
We were just starting to rise out of our seats when Win blurted out “Do you think Roger killed her?”
I dropped back in my seat, and Jane did the same. I thought she might be stunned by the question, or angry, but she wasn’t.
“No, I don’t,” she calmly answered, “I’m sure that’s what the cops think, but not me. Like I said, I’ve known him since we were six or seven. His reaction when I told him… did I tell you I called him right after the cops told me, while I was waiting for them to pick me up to identify the body? I’m sure he was genuinely shocked, and he was terrified.
“Let me put it this way; Roger is motivated by two things – greed and fear. I don’t think he would have the balls to kill someone, and if he had killed her, either deliberately or by accident, he’d have been out of this state so fast… As it was, he panicked and packed all his shit in the van and got out of her apartment as quick as he could. He should have left the area, but he couldn’t resist the final sale he had lined up. He would have made four or five hundred on one sale. So he rented a motel room on Shelburne Road, not knowing, like we talked about, that the Burlington cops were already on to him.”
Well, that sort of fit with what I thought – Roger as the killer didn’t make any sense to me. We said our goodbyes after that, and Jane scribbled her phone number on a matchbook for me, and I did the same. Win kept a straight face as we walked out – he was good at that – but when we got to the bottom of the stairs he burst out laughing.
“Can you imagine what Tom is going to say when he finds out you traded phone numbers with Jane?”