CarrollBlog

One of my favorite Beatles songs is "A Hard Day's Night" despite the fact the first time I ever heard it was while sitting in the backseat of a police car on the way to the town police station where we had to give statements about how we had just found the body. So naturally ever after when I hear the song I think back to that day and remember the radio DJ excitedly saying "And now the new song by The Beatles!"
My sister worked at the town theater that summer. They were about to open for the season and wanted as much PR as possible. So she hired my pal Joe and me for five dollars each to go down to the railroad station and hand out flyers announcing the first performance to commuters as they boarded early morning trains to NY. The station was right next to the Hudson river so when there was a lull between trains, Joe and I walked over to the water and threw stones in. He threw, I threw, he threw, I threw. Sometimes we did it for distance, sometimes we threw to see who could get their stone to skip the most times across the water. Joe eventually found a large stone and heaved it in with all his might. It hit something. That something moved and suddenly a large inverted "V" appeared in the water about twenty feet out. We stared at it for a while until one of us, I don't remember who, said "It's an elbow!" Joe ran back to the station to call the police while I waded into the water to get whatever it was. When I was in up to my chest I reached the elbow which was now rocking back and forth in the water current. I took hold of the arm and slowly pulled it toward me. It moved easily and now I could see down into the water. It was a girl. She was wearing a white bra and underpants and long dark hair obscured her face. The one thing I remember most vividly was being calm. I was probably 11 or 12 at the time and as skittish as any kid that age, but for some mysterious reason seeing the body didn't scare or make me nervous. To this day I do not know why that was. Holding the dead girl's arm, I calmly decided the best thing I could do was pull her back to shore. It was a short way and easy to do. Back on land, I reached down into the water and taking hold of her shoulders, pulled her up onto the small beach. She was in rigor mortis by then. One arm was crooked in that "V" position, the other was across her chest, as if even in death she was trying modestly to cover herself. One of her knees was bent. Across her face something that looked like whipped egg white completely hid her features. Without thinking, I reached down and wiped the frothy stuff off. She was very pretty. Her expression was peaceful-- as if she were only sleeping. I had never seen her before. I don't know how long I was there alone with her but the whole time was peaceful. She was dead and I was keeping her company until someone arrived. Someone who would take over and know what to do with her. And eventually they did.
Years later I decided to use that event in my novel KISSING THE BEEHIVE. The oddest part was before beginning the book, I wrote to the town police department asking to see their records on the case. Back then the only thing I heard about it was a rumor that the girl-- who came from the next town over-- had been murdered by her boyfriend and thrown into the river. But the police wrote to me and said they no longer had any records of the case. They doubted if any even existed after three decades. I was amazed. I did further research but no one anywhere in the county had information. It was as if the event had never taken place. Stephanie Wendel. That was her name. I hope I am spelling it correctly. Last year I learned that my friend Joe died too a long time ago. On hearing that, part of me wondered if they might have met up somewhere in the land beyond and talked about this.