orange-sketched in the darkness. Stepping gingerly between blanket corners and blue-jeaned legs, he advanced to the flaming center of the field.
The heat and the glare were intense in the clearing that surrounded the roaring twelve foot fire. He stood for a moment, staring at the flames. Suddenly the baseball manager and a cheerleader came dashing around from the other side of the clearing. 'That's it! That's the boy!' they cried, and seized the carton from his hands.
'Hey,' the manager said, hefting the box. 'This isn't empty.'
'Books... old notebooks.'
'Ah Magnifico!' The manager turned to the encircling crowd. 'Attention! Attention! The burning of the books!' A few people looked up from their conversations. The manager and the cheerleader took the carton between them, swinging it back and forth towards the rippling flames. 'AH the way to the top!' the manager shouted. 'Hey...'
'Don't worry, friend. We never miss! Book-burning a specialty!' They swung the carton; one... two... three! It sailed up parallel to the cone shaped pyre, arced over and landed with a gush of sparks at the very top. It teetered a moment, then held. There was a spattering of applause from the on-lookers. 'Hey, here comes Al with a packing case!' cried the cheerleader. He dashed around to the other side of the fire, the manager running after him.
He stood watching as the carton turned black, sheets of flame sliding up past its sides. Suddenly the foundation of the fire shifted, pushing out showers of sparks. A flaming brand hit his foot He jumped back. Sparks glowed all over the front of Ms trousers. Nervously he slapped them out, his hands coppery in the fire's glare.
When the last sparks were extinguished, he looked up to make certain that the carton was still secure. It was. Flames ripped up through its top. It's contents, he thought, were probably completely burned by now.
These had included the Pharmacy lab manual, the Kingship Copper pamphlets, the tags from the valise, and the few articles of clothing that Dorothy had prepared for their brief honeymoon; a cocktail dress of gray taffeta, a pair of black suede pumps, stockings, a half slip, bra and panties, two handkerchiefs, a pair of pink satin mules, a pink negligee, and a nightgown; silk and lace, delicate, scented, white...
From the Blue River Clarion-Ledger; Friday, April 28, 1950: STODDARD COED DIES IN PLUNGE MUNICIPAL BUILDING TRAGEDY FATAL TO DAUGHTER OF COPPER MAGNATE Dorothy Kingship, 19-year-old Stoddard University sophomore, was killed today when she fell or jumped from the roof of the 14 story Blue River Municipal Building. The attractive blonde girl, whose home was in New York City, was a daughter of Leo Kingship, president of Kingship Copper Inc.
At 12: 58 PM, workers in the building were startled by a loud scream and a crashing sound from the wide airshaft which runs through the structure. Rushing to their windows, they saw the contorted figure of a young woman. Dr. Harvey C. Hess, of 57 Wood-bridge Circle, who was in the lobby at the time, reached the scene seconds later to pronounce the girl dead.
The police, arriving shortly thereafter, found a purse resting on the 3 foot wall that encircles the airshaft. In the purse were a birth certificate and a Stoddard University registration card which served to identify the girl. Police also found a fresh cigarette stub on the roof, stained with lipstick of the shade Miss Kingship wore, leading them to conclude that she had been on the roof for several minutes prior to the plunge which ended her life...
Rex Cargill, an elevator operator, told police that he took Miss Kingship to the 6th or 7th floor half an hour before the tragedy. Another operator, Andrew Vecci, believes he took a woman dressed similarly to Miss Kingship to the 14th floor shortly after 12: 30, but is uncertain of the floor at which she entered his car.
According to Stoddard's Dean of Students, Clark D. Welch, Miss Kingship was doing satisfactory work in all her studies. Shocked residents of the dormitory where she lived could offer no reason why she might have taken her own life. They described her as quiet and withdrawn. 'Nobody knew her too well,' said one girl.
From the Blue River Clarion-Ledger; Saturday, April 29, 1950: COED'S DEATH WAS SUICIDE SISTER RECEIVES NOTE IN MAIL The death of Dorothy Kingship, Stoddard coed who plunged from the roof of the Municipal Building yesterday afternoon, was a suicide, Chief of Police Eldon Chesser told reporters last night. An unsigned note in a handwriting definitely established to be that of the dead girl was received through the mail late yesterday afternoon by her sister, Ellen Kingship, a student in Caldwell, Wisconsin. Although the exact wording of the note has not been made public, Chief Chesser characterized it as 'a clear expression of suicidal intent.' The note was mailed from this city, postmarked yesterday at 6: 30 AM.
On receiving the note, Ellen Kingship attempted to reach her sister by telephone. The call was transferred to Stoddard's Dean of Students, Clark D. Welch, who informed Miss Kingship of the 19-year-old girl's death. Miss Kingship left immediately for Blue River, arriving here yesterday evening. Her father, Leo Kingship, president of Kingship Copper, Inc., is expected to arrive some time today, his plane having been grounded in Chicago because of bad weather.
LAST PERSON TO SPEAK TO SUICIDE DESCRIBES HER AS TENSE, NERVOUS by La Verne Breen 'She laughed a lot and was smiling the whole time she was in my room. And she kept moving around. I thought at the time that she was very happy about something, but now I realize that those were all symptoms of the terrible nervous strain she was under. Her laughs were tense laughs, not happy ones. I should have recognized that right away, being a psychology major.' Thus Anna-belle Koch, Stoddard sophomore, describes the behavior of Dorothy Kingship two hours before the latter's suicide.
Miss Koch, a native of Boston, is a petite and charming young lady. Yesterday she was confined to her dormitory room because of a severe head cold. 'Dorothy knocked on the door around a quarter past eleven,' says Miss Koch. 'I was in bed. She came in and I was a little surprised, because we hardly knew each other. As I said, she was smiling and moving around a great deal. She was wearing a bathrobe. She asked if I would loan her the belt to my green suit. I should mention that we both have the same green suit. I got mine in Boston and she got hers in New York, but they're exactly the same. We both wore them to dinner last Saturday night, and it was really embarrassing. Anyway, she asked if I would loan her my belt because the buckle of hers was broken. I hesitated at first, because it's my new spring suit, but she seemed to want it so badly that I finally told her which drawer it was in and she got it. She thanked me very much and left.'
Here Miss Koch paused and removed her eyeglasses. 'Now here's the strange part. Later, when the police came and searched her room for a note, they found my belt on her desk! I recognized it by the way the gold finish was rubbed off the tooth of the buckle. I had been very disappointed about that, because it was an expensive suit The police kept the belt.
'I was very puzzled by Dorothy's actions. She had pretended to want my belt, but she hadn't used it at all. She was wearing her green suit when... when it happened. The police checked and her belt buckle wasn't the least bit broken. It all seemed very mysterious.
'Then I realized that the belt must have been just a pretext to talk to me. Laying out the suit probably reminded her of me, and everyone knew I was incapacitated with a cold, so she came in and pretended she needed the belt. She must have been desperate for someone to talk with. If only I'd recognized the signs at the time. I can't help feeling that if I had gotten her to talk out her troubles, whatever they might have been, maybe all this wouldn't have happened.'
... As we left Annabelle Koch's room, she added a final word. 'Even when the police return the belt to me,' she said, 'I know I won't be able to wear my green suit again.'
He found the last weeks of the school year disappointingly flat. He had expected the excitement created by Dorothy's death to linger in the air like the glow of a rocket; instead it had faded almost immediately. He had anticipated more campus conversations and newspaper articles, allowing him the luxuriant superiority of the omniscient; instead- nothing. Three days after Dorothy died campus gossip veered away to pounce on a dozen marijuana cigarettes that had been discovered in one of the smaller dormitories. As for the newspapers, a short paragraph announcing Leo Kingship's arrival in Blue River marked the last time the Kingship name appeared in the Clarion-Ledger. No word of an autopsy nor of her pregnancy, although surely when an unmarried girl committed suicide without stating a reason, that must be the first thing they looked for. Keeping it out of the papers must have cost Kingship plenty.
He told himself he should be rejoicing. If there had been any kind of inquiry he certainly would have been sought for questioning. But there had been no questions, no suspicion,-hence no investigation. Everything had fallen into place perfectly. Except that business of the belt. That puzzled him. Why on earth had Dorothy taken that Koch girl's belt when she hadn't wanted to wear it? Maybe she really did want to talk to someone-about the wedding-and then had thought better of it. Thank God for that. Or maybe the buckle of her belt had really been broken, but she had managed to fix it after she had already taken Koch's. Either way, though, it was an unimportant incident. Koch's interpretation of it only strengthened the picture of a suicide, added to the flawless success of his plans. He should
