Yolanda’s keyboard clicked.
“It doesn’t matter, he’s not listed.”
“Do you have any other information on him?” Kate asked.
“That would be it,” Donna said. “I’m sorry.”
“Hold on. We could go to our coordinators,” Yolanda suggested.
“Coordinators?”
“Alumni executives who are knowledgeable for a graduating year.” Yolanda’s keyboard clicked. Then a speakerphone clicked on and a line started ringing. “They usually graduated that year and worked on the yearbook.” The line was answered on the third ring.
“Hello,” a woman answered.
“Hey, Cindy, it’s Yolanda at the association. We got you on speaker.”
“What’s up?”
“Got a reporter here, Kate Page from Newslead in New York. She’s doing research asking about Sorin Zurrn.”
“Sorin Zurrn, Sorin Zurrn. Kind of a nerd, geek kid with a limp?”
“Yes,” Kate said. “Hi, Cindy, Kate Page here. What can you tell me about him?”
“Gosh, he really kept to himself. Quiet, weird guy as I recall. He was in my history class. We had Mr. Deacon. Sorin got picked on a lot. I think his mother had psychological problems.”
“Do you happen to know how we can get a message to him? I mean, do you know in general where he’s living right now?”
“No, sorry. I think he left town. I think his mother died some years ago.”
“Did he have any friends, Cindy?” Kate asked.
“No. He was a pretty sad case. Hold on, I think there was one person, Gwen Garcia, she was an eighty-eight, too. She used to hang with Tonya Plesivsky. They tormented Sorin quite a bit. I think Gwen had a change of heart and tried to be friends with him after the incident. I know Gwen—she’s Gwen Vollick, now lives in Koz Park. Let me give her a call, see if she’ll talk to you.”
Cindy hung up before Kate had a chance to ask her to elaborate on “the incident.” She asked Donna and Yolanda but neither recalled. They had graduated from Thornwood in the early eighties. Yolanda flipped through the yearbook to Tonya Plesivsky’s picture for Kate.
Tonya was pretty and, judging from the long list of clubs and societies she’d belonged to, she must’ve been popular, too. While they waited Kate asked Yolanda to submit the names Carl Nelson, Jerome Fell, Tara Mae—or Tara Dawn Mae—and Vanessa Page into the school data banks. There were quite a few Vanessas, Jeromes, Carls, Taras, Nelsons and Pages but nothing that fit. Then the office phone rang. It was Cindy calling back. Yolanda put her on speaker.
“Hi there. I reached Gwen and she said she really didn’t want to talk about Sorin or Tonya. She said she’d always felt bad about teasing Sorin, but they were just stupid kids. Gwen figured you were writing a story about bullying and didn’t want her name used. She said the whole thing is still sad for her.”
“I understand, Cindy,” Kate said.
“Sorry, wish I could help you.”
“There’s one thing. Can you tell me about the incident and how it led Gwen to change?”
A silence filled the air.
“Tonya was one of Gwen’s best friends and she died.”
“I’m so sorry. What happened?”
“She died when she was fifteen. She was looking for her dog.”
CHAPTER 44
Chicago
After leaving Thornwood High School, Kate sat at the wheel of her rental car making notes while struggling to put together the pieces of information she’d gleaned about Sorin Zurrn.
Am I any closer to finding him?
The women of the Alumni Association had been friendly and helpful, but they wouldn’t give her addresses, emails or phone numbers. She’d sensed an undercurrent of unease at having a reporter asking questions about former students.
After looking over her notes, Kate tried, yet again, to find any address information for Sorin Zurrn in Chicago. Again she struck out. She then searched for Tonya Plesivsky’s family and caught her breath.
An Ivan Plesivsky came up on Craddick Street.
Two blocks from the Zurrn home.
He has to be a relative.
Newslead subscribed to an array of online information databases that allowed reporters to conduct extensive searches through any device they used. Kate ran the Plesivsky name through the databases for the Chicago papers, an obit or news item, anything on Tonya’s death.
A story in the Sun-Times came up. It was short with no byline.
Girl Dies after Fall in Park
A fifteen-year-old girl from the Northwest Side died Saturday night after she fell in Ben Bailey Park while looking for her lost dog, officials said.
Medical crews responded to a 911 call at around 3:35 p.m. Saturday that reported a girl with a traumatic head injury was found by joggers at the base of a stone stairway. The joggers administered CPR until paramedics arrived and transported the girl, identified as Tonya Plesivsky of Craddick Street, to Verger Green Memorial, where she was pronounced dead.
“This is not real. I can’t believe it,” Ivan Plesivsky, the girl’s father, told the Sun-Times.
It appears that the girl tripped and fell, striking her head on the stone steps, according to parks officials and Chicago police.
A small photo of Tonya holding her dog, Pepper, accompanied the article.
That’s so sad. She was such a young girl. But this was the girl who would “torment” Sorin. Why did her friend Gwen stop bullying him? I suppose it could be expected in the wake of Tonya’s death. But how bad was it if, after all these years, Gwen refused to talk about it? And would any of this have any connection to Jerome Fell in Denver, or Carl Nelson, or Vanessa, or anything? Kate shook her head. Sure it’s a long shot, but that’s what I’m here to do, take a long shot.
The white picket fence protecting the islands of dirt and tufts of browned grass of the Plesivskys’ front yard was missing a few pickets. The next thing Kate noticed was that the front of the wood frame bungalow had a wheelchair ramp. She glimpsed sheets and shirts flapping on a clothesline in the backyard as she went to the front door and knocked.
Kate heard movement, then voices. A moment later the door cracked open, releasing the smell
