A Bullet for CinderellaMacDonald, John D. (John Dann)
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A Bullet for Cinderella
MacDonald, John D. (John Dann)
American fiction -- 20th century; Detective and mystery stories
"I couldn't be expected to identify them. If I remember correctly,
I once had eight Judys in one class. Now that name, thank God, is
beginning to die out a little. There have never been too many Cindys.
Yet there has been a small, constant supply."
"I want to have a chance to talk to the girls he mentioned. I've talked
to Ruth. Judy has moved away. I can't remember Cindy's last name. I
wonder if there is any way I could get a look at the list of students
in hopes of identifying her."
"I guess you could," he said. "The administration office will be empty
by now. You could ask them Monday. Let me see. Timmy graduated in
forty-six. I keep old yearbooks here. They're over there on that bottom
shelf. You could take the ones for that year and the next two years
and look them over, there by the window if you like. I have to get on
with these papers. And I really can't tell you much more about Timmy. I
liked him and had hopes for him. But he lacked motivation. That seems
to be the trouble with too many of the children lately. No motivation.
They see no goal worth working for. They no longer have any dreams.
They are content with the manufactured dreams of N.B.C. and Columbia."
I sat by the windows and went through the yearbooks. There was no Cindy
in the yearbook for '46. There was one in the '47 yearbook. I knew when
I saw her picture that she could not be the one. She was a great fat
girl with small, pinched, discontented features, sullen, rebellious
little eyes. There was a Cindy in the '48 yearbook. She had a narrow
face, protruding teeth, weak eyes behind heavy lenses, an expression
of overwhelming stupidity. Yet I marked down their names. It would be
worth a try, I thought.
I went back to the '46 yearbook and went through page after page of
graduates more thoroughly. I came to a girl named Cynthia Cooper. She
was a reasonably attractive snub-nosed blonde. I wondered if Timmy
could possibly have said Cynthy. It would be an awkward nickname for
Cynthia. And even though his voice by that time had been weak and
blurred, I was certain he had said Cindy. He had repeated the name. But
I wrote her down, too.
Ruth Stamm's yearbook picture was not very good. But the promise of
her, the clear hint of what she would become, was there in her face.
Her activities, listed under the picture, made a long list. It was the
same with Timmy. He grinned into the camera.
Mr. Leach looked up at me when I stood near his table. "Any luck?"
"I took down some names. They might help."
I thanked him for his help. He was bent over his papers again before
I got to the door. Odd little guy, with his own strange brand of
dedication and concern. Pompous little man, but with an under-current
of kindness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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