Chapter 31 – Comme ci, Comme ca
Discouraging news on the television that night – the judge who held the appeal hearing had again denied bail for Roger Warren. Not that I was particularly sympathetic about Roger, but I really wanted Jane to be able to talk with him privately, and that would be much more difficult as long as he was in jail.
Jane called while we were all watching “I’ve Got a Secret,” which caused another flurry of curious questions and taunting when I wouldn’t say anything. I couldn’t talk with my whole family in the room, so she asked me to stop over the next day, after supper.
Tuesday morning, I had an unusual opportunity to talk with all of the guys, in phys ed class. The teacher, Mr. Haney, was demonstrating some wrestling holds and moves, picking out one boy at a time to work with, so there was a lot of sitting and watching. Tom, Win, Rollo and I sat together on the floor, and I managed to fill them all in on my conversation with Old Ben.
Everybody had a question, and everybody had an opinion. We now had a clearer picture of Miss Delisle’s movements up to the time she left the Bake Shop, and a better idea of Roger’s movements, as well, but that seemed to raise as many questions as it answered. It seemed unlikely that Roger had done it, given the timing of his comings and goings, and his reaction to her death. At least, it seemed unlikely to me. Tom was unconvinced.
“You’re allowing these details to obscure the obvious,” he said, “No one else had both the opportunity and the motive that Roger Warren had. He has been involved in criminal activity for years; probably longer than we know. Why don’t you want to believe he did it?”
Rollo wasn’t as adamant about it, but he pretty much agreed with Tom about Roger.
“The guy is scum, Denny. How can you defend him?”
“I’m not defending him, you guys. I’m just saying that the facts don’t fit. I think he’s scum, too; I just don’t think he killed her.”
Win had a slightly different tack. He thought the police were wrong to rule out a random killer. Possibly a stranger.
“As far as we know, Old Ben and Roger Warren were the only other people at the school. If Denny’s right, and the facts don’t fit either one of them, then there had to be someone else there, and maybe it was a stranger. The cops think because she wasn’t robbed or raped that it wasn’t a stranger, but they could be wrong.”
We eventually had to get up and wrestle each other, but we continued the conversation intermittently all through class, in the showers, and on the way to the next class. The four of us stopped when we got into the main building, where Rollo had to go one way, and the rest of us another.
“Look, you guys,” Rollo said, “do you really think the four of us arguing back and forth are going to figure this out? I don’t think so.”
“So what can we do?” Win asked.
“Well, who’s the smartest person we know?”
“Kate,” the three of us answered simultaneously.
“Right. So, Denny, why don’t you get together with Kate, just the two of you, and go over the whole thing. If the two of you can’t figure it out, who can?”
Thanks to a diversion by Win, cornering Mr. Ermentrout with a question about his Civil War term paper, I was able to talk privately with Kate for a few minutes and set it up. I would go over to her house Wednesday night after supper, ostensibly to do homework together, and we would sit and brainstorm about the murder. I would be talking to Jane again on Tuesday night, so I would have as much information as I could get.
That afternoon, we had our first French class of the new year, and it was memorable. We had had the assembly the day before, so Mrs. Pratt had lost a day of her precious “learning program,” and she was not happy about it. She spent the first ten minutes complaining about how they had scheduled the assembly, and what a nightmare it was for her, as if it didn’t affect any of the other teachers.
Then she went right after us; me, Tom, and Win, that is. She told me to stand up and conjugate the verb “voir” in the present tense. I looked desperately around the room, but, of course, no one could help me at that point. So I took a stab at it. I knew it was an irregular verb, but I hadn’t even looked at the textbook over the break, and I had no clue. I just attached what sounded like plausible endings, and rattled through it. Totally wrong.
So she spent a couple of minutes reading me the riot act and promising me that I would be right back in French I next year at this rate. Then she moved on to Win. It was pretty much the same; he hadn’t done any of the homework either. So Pratt thoroughly humiliated him before moving on to Tom.
“And what about you, Tom? How are you doing with your catch-up work?”
Tom coolly reached out his hands, palms up, and made an up-and-down motion with them, as if he was juggling invisible balls, then said, “comme ci, comme ca.”
Mrs. Pratt was stunned. There was total silence in the room, and then she burst out laughing.
“Where did you learn that?” she asked.
Tom casually shrugged. “From an acquaintance of mine; a Frenchman.”
“Well, you’ve actually learned a very useful French phrase, and it’s the first time you’ve shown any initiative or desire to learn in this class. Bravo!”
Well, that was a huge win for Tom. I had told them all the things Old Ben had told me, including that phrase, which literally means “like this, like that,” and he had quickly put it to good use. But the advantage he gained with Mrs. Pratt was short-lived. For the next week, or so, every time Tom didn’t know the right answer, which was almost all the time, he answered “comme ci, comme ca.” By about the fourth time he said it, Pratt had had enough, and she was no longer amused. Tom’s brief time in her good graces was over, and he actually took over my spot as her number one whipping boy.
That night, after supper, I headed out for Jane’s apartment. Usually, I would have said I was going to the library, but they had all heard me talking to Jane on the phone, so they knew I was meeting her again. Brother tried to follow me again, but I was a well-practiced sneak, and I shook him off pretty easily.
I told Jane everything Old Ben had told me. She listened carefully, and when I was finished, she just sat silently, shaking her head.
“I still don’t think Roger did it,” I said, “It doesn’t fit.”
“No, it doesn’t. Listen, this janitor, he never saw Roger get out of the van? Maybe try the door?”
“No, he never saw that. But he didn’t go over to the school until after his wife had heard the car horn. We don’t know how long Roger had been there.”
“Yeah. But if Roger just sat there blowing his horn, then drove away, he must have been convinced there was nobody there.”
“That’s what I think. I wish one of us could talk to him, though.”
Jane was disappointed about the bail hearing, but philosophical. As she told me, she wasn’t particularly sympathetic about Roger’s situation; he had been playing with fire for years, and she wasn’t surprised that he got caught.
“I really want to talk to him, but mainly because I want to know what happened to Sally. Like I told you, Roger’s lawyer, Jim Berthelsen, wants me to help him find a way to get Roger out of this drug rap. I don’t know how I’m going to do that. If I can help him without getting myself in trouble, then, sure, I’ll help. Roger’s still my friend, as much as he disgusts me. But I want to talk to him about that Saturday, and about Sally. Maybe he’s told me everything there is to tell; it was only half an hour, maybe less, between when he left here and when he came back. And he says he never saw her in that time. But I want to hear it again – every word.”
“I want to hear it, too.” Any little detail that Roger had omitted or forgotten might help.
“I can still talk to him,” she reassured me, “It’s just going to be more difficult to schedule; I’ll have to go down to the jail, either in the evening or on the weekend. Neither Roger nor I will feel very comfortable talking in that environment, but, we don’t have any choice.”
“Why do you think he didn’t make bail? The lawyer was pretty confident, wasn’t he?”
She laughed. “You don’t know lawyers like I do. Berthelsen’s style is to always appear confident. He was confident right up to the moment the judge said no, and then he acted as if it was what he expected all along. He’s still assuring Roger that he’s going to beat the rap.”
“You’ve talked to him? The lawyer, I mean.”
“Oh, yeah. He called me at the office right after the hearing, which wasn’t really proper, but he knows my bosses, so they let it slide. He called again last night. He’s still trying to find other people who might be able to help. I’ve given him all Roger’s professors’ names, but I don’t think that will help much. Everybody knows what he got expelled for, and very few of his professors liked him anyway. Character witnesses are going to be few and far between.
“As far as turning State’s evidence, I can’t help him with that, or rather, I won’t help him with that. I’m not going to help Roger drag somebody else down with him.”
I told her that I was going to get together with Kate the next night and go over everything.
“Well, it can’t hurt. I don’t really know her; I met her with Sally a couple of times, and I know Sally really liked her, and her friend. You say she’s really smart?”
“Yes, she is. She figured out what was behind the Principal’s speech yesterday, and the Chief’s strange comments.” I told her about the assembly on Monday afternoon.
“You’re kidding me! They didn’t even say her name?”
“Nope. They’re acting as though Sally was an outsider – not part of the school at all.”
“That’s disgusting. She gets murdered and they treat her like a criminal?”
“Yeah. Kate thinks they’re terrified, especially of the marijuana.”
“Well, they’d better get used to it; it’s not going away.”
I promised to keep her posted, and I headed home.