THE RIGHT TIME TO DIE (2 page)

JORDY BITSON TURNED
up his broad, flat nose until it resembled a mushroom. Turning his face to the breeze, he sniffed at the night air. He watched as Ed Dojcsak walked from his front stoop to his car. Dojcsak moved woodenly, like a man stiff from physical exertion.

“
Fat fuck
,” Jordy said under his breath.

As if sensing the slur, Dojcsak turned his head slowly in Jordy’s direction. After a brief pause, he resumed his tentative walk to the car. Jordy waited in shadow, out of sight and out of the rain while the policeman pulled his vehicle from the drive and into the street.

Jordy slipped quietly through a side entrance to the kitchen of his own home: in from the dark, out of the cold.

A sheepish light spilled over the kitchen from a single incandescent bulb revealing a sink stacked high with unwashed utensils and dirty plates, left over from today, yesterday and possibly, though Jordy was disinclined to investigate further, the day before. Here, a dollop of coagulated egg for breakfast, there, for lunch, a sandwich with some sort of sauce, and for dinner, Jordy simply had no way to tell one greasy food stain from another.

Two-dozen empty bottles of Budweiser beer and an ashtray cluttered the kitchen table, butts spilling over the ashtray’s brim, leaving burn marks on the Formica surface. The stale aroma from tobacco mingled with the yeasty odor of sour beer, hanging heavy in the air like cheesecloth. To Jordy it was unpleasant yet perversely reassuring. Inadequate as it was, it smelled of home.

In his bedroom, Jordy stripped his damp clothes. In the bathroom, he showered, brushed his teeth, and rinsed his mouth with Listerine. He extracted a packet of dry cigarettes from a bedside drawer, ignited and lay naked on his bed. He contemplated the gray smoke as it hovered like a cloud at the ceiling. Jordy retrieved his mobile, inserted headphones, swiped his screen and, arriving at his
Favorites
, selected from a playlist that included
Cannibal Corpse
,
Deicide
,
Suffocation
and
Dying Fetus
.

To Jordy, the incessant, thrashing, thumping rhythm of the music and deep growl of the vocals was oddly soothing (with the added bonus of driving his old lady bat-shit crazy).

For no reason, Jordy recalled the Tin Man in
The Wizard of Oz
, discovered by Dorothy rusting in the woods. As a child, terrified of the Wicked Witch of the West, Jordy’s mother had delighted in his fear by forcing him to watch the movie anyway.

“Jordy, don’t be a
child
,” she would snap, oblivious, seemingly, to the fact that at only five years of age he was. “It’s make believe, you fool,” she would say and cackle, “
I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog too!
” Just like Margaret Hamilton in the movie and in a way that made you believe she would. (Though Jordy didn’t own a dog, his mother’s threat was no less chilling for the fact.)

Some nights, in his bedroom, frozen to the mattress and immobilized by a fear of flying monkeys (
Of all things!
), Jordy would wet the bed, unable to muster sufficient courage to cross the darkened hallway to the bathroom. He would pee, lying awake until daybreak, whereupon being discovered by his mother shivering in his own mess she would be obliged to beat him silly. If Jordy was one to consider the lasting impact inflicted upon his psychological well being by his relationship with his mother, he was not one to speak of it. Mostly, Jordy kept himself to himself, with few exceptions sharing secrets with no one.

As if to contradict Jordy’s own impression of himself, a ping signaled the arrival of an incoming text message.

hey fuckhead what u up 2

9 inches

u wish

no u wish

eat me

u wish

haha

what u want

crazy shit 2nite

Automatically, Jordy’s thumbs moved to type in a reply; something witty yet cruel. But instinct—
self-preservation?
—caused his thumbs to freeze an inch from the keypad: ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty…

u there

A full minute had passed since Jordy’s last response.

hey u there

Carefully, Jordy reviewed each line of the thread. “
Shit
,” he said aloud. At the same time Jordy tracked his thumb to the
Options
menu on his screen. From the available options he selected
Delete Thread
. Without returning to the
Home
screen, Jordy thumbed the
Power
switch on his phone; he pressed.
Power Off?
;
Select
. Five seconds later his phone shut down.

SARA PRIDMORE WAITED
for the shadow to pass, making herself as inconspicuous against the ancient backdrop of the Episcopal Church building as the damp brick would allow, melting into the gloom as if she were moss. Sara did not want to be seen. Had she recognized the shadow as Jordy and moved to confront the boy that evening, rather than to let him pass unobstructed, the week, the month, possibly even the entire year following the death of Missy Bitson may have evolved differently. It might not have, but as the shape was unrecognizable to her then as Jordy Bitson, Sara would never be obliged to speculate. She may not have been obliged to speculate regardless, the pragmatic Sara never having subscribed to the ripple theory of cause and effect.

Resisting a temptation to go left onto Main Street toward the crime scene, Sara instead made her way north over the bridge toward home. She realized an unsolicited appearance in the alley would be difficult to explain to her superior officer, Ed Dojcsak, provoking a deeper interest in her, which after only a year working together, Sara was unwilling to oblige.

Earlier, she had been involved in the search for the missing girl. On her feet all day, by ten, she’d decided on a break, planning a return to duty after a quick shower and a hot meal. Having been shamefully sidetracked, Sara hadn’t returned at all, unable to think of a legitimate excuse for Dojcsak as to why not.

“Why are you here?” Dojcsak would undoubtedly ask if she were to show up at the crime scene now, curious, though perhaps not suspicious. “How did you know?” he would ask, referring to the murder.

Sara could lie. “I was walking, Ed. Insomnia? Restlessness? ESP? You decide. Either way, I couldn’t sleep. I decided to walk, saw the flashing lights, made my way over, and sure as Bob’s your Uncle here I am. Make of it what you will.” She could then ask, as if she didn’t already know, “So, what have you got, boss?”

The scenario played out in her mind even as her common sense dismissed it.

That evening, shortly after midnight, the telephone had rung, pulling Sara from the edge of her own dream filled and restless sleep. It had taken a moment to steady her nerves before Sara realized she was not at home, in her own room or asleep in her own bed. A snatch of muffled conversation overheard in the dark and Sara understood she was not alone and the child who had disappeared earlier in the day was no longer missing but dead.

Pulling herself from the bed, Sara wandered the broadloom, haphazardly searching the dark for her underclothes, her blouse, her blue jeans, and her shoes, her body smelling sharply of sex and sweat. Sara dressed in silence, afterward parting company with her companion on the street, declining the reluctant offer of a lift home, knowing that for both it would be awkward and needlessly indiscreet.

Sara walked. Beneath her, the river swirled under the bridge, at this time of year the level high and rising. Sara hoped parents would be mindful of their children; last spring, they’d lost two.

On this side of the village, south of the river, nature had withstood both progress and the indiscriminate influence of the property development occurring to the north. Surviving stands of century-old oak trees and elm trees lined the streets, refusing resolutely to yield. After one hundred years the topography if not the social character of South Church Falls remained relatively intact, an uneasy though accommodating mix of commercial and low-end residential, its weary complexion patient though not hopeful of the prospect for urban renewal.

South from the river, the lights from the church twinkled like a beacon, though the rectory was now dark.

Home once to the Roman Catholic parish, the building had been sold off to the Church of England after the Second World War. Whether that conflict had claimed its larger than fair share of papists or whether the simple migration of uneducated farmers south to the industrial jobs of Albany and points beyond was the inevitable cause, by the year nineteen forty-seven the number of Catholics attending Sunday morning and Saturday evening Mass had dwindled to an untenable level. Shortly thereafter, the County Diocese ceded the church to the competition.

Looming over the river like a troll, the building is a gothic monstrosity, its pale brick smudged charcoal gray by the elements. The architecture consists of late eighteenth century cinder block rectangles and squares, piled high atop one another. The spire dominates the horizon on the south side of the river, undistinguished save for an elaborate stained glass panel set forty feet from ground level, donated in the fifties by a nearby diocese to honor the building’s religious cessation to The Church of England from that of Rome.

Had she bothered, Sara might have wondered:
does the lapse in repentance-based faith have anything to do with the killing of the girl
? Only nominally spiritual herself, Sara preferred, instead, to ascribe such inhumanity to the nature of the beast:
Men
. Not “
Man
” as defined generally in the Biblical sense, but by Sara’s own more narrow interpretation of the roughly one half of human beings who pee standing up.

Sara shivered, considering the implications of a killing that in a small town would necessarily extend in its impact well beyond the immediate family. Questions would be asked, answers, half-truths, perhaps even outright lies reluctantly, possibly enthusiastically, given. Knowledge would shine into corners best left hidden by the dark. Transgressions would be exposed, both hurtful and humiliating, no matter how relevant, or otherwise, to the case. Hereafter, she decided, the citizens of Church Falls would see each other—and perhaps even themselves?—much differently. The investigation, if not the murder, would ensure it.

Drawing the string on her nylon windbreaker more tightly to her cheeks, Sara crossed Main Street on the opposite side of the bridge, moving with the current along the river. She passed the vacant street level office into which the local police detachment was soon scheduled to move. At five-years-old, the building wasn’t new exactly, only relatively so against the age of the original Town Square, the weathered block of limestone from which she currently worked.

Turning left, Sara entered the foyer to a low-rise apartment house constructed to accommodate twenty modest residential suites. Sara occupied an apartment overlooking the river, a one-bedroom with kitchenette and living–dining room combination. It was small but convenient, rather expensive when measured against her annual income and allowed her lobby access to the shops, theater, and recreational facilities that formed part of a larger development. Soon, she would be able to wake, ready and within minutes arrive at the office without ever having to set foot outside. Sara believed she might miss her regular commute by foot along the river, over the bridge, through the old town and into work.

Shortly before one on the morning after the murder, Sara returned to her apartment. She greeted
Bollocks
her cat and prepared tea. She showered. Suitably refreshed, Sara retrieved the messages on her mobile.

As expected, from Christopher Burke: “Where the hell are you, Sara? We’ve found the girl. Or the body, if you prefer. Call me,
stat!”

From Ed Dojcsak: “Hello, Sara. I imagine you’ve shut down your phone. When you wake, call me. We’ve found Missy Bitson and I’m afraid the news is not good.”

After a respectable time, Sara gathered her things. She bade
Bollocks
farewell
and
left the apartment to make her way on foot toward the crime scene.

“I HEAR SHE WASN’T...”
Andy Pardoe paused, as if searching for the appropriate word. “I hear she wasn’t …fucked,” he said, finally. He uttered the phrase softly, fearing someone might overhear.

“I don’t understand,” said Neal McMaster.

Despite Andy’s caution, Neal’s older brother, Leland, had overheard and now joined the conversation, turning to Neal as if to explain
.
“He means like this, moron.”

The older boy formed the forefinger and thumb of his left hand into a ring. Inserting his right index finger through the opening, he pulled it forward and back, forward and back in a rapid thrusting motion.

“I know
that
,” said Neal, visibly embarrassed. “But what does it
mean
?”

“It means she wasn’t raped,” Ed Dojcsak said.

“C’mon, Ed, she was butt naked,” said Leland. As if to complete the statement, he added, “You knob.”

“Her clothes could have been torn away on the rocks, after she went over the damn,” Dojcsak countered weakly.

“Dojcsak,” McMaster said, “Do this town a favor. Don’t take up policing as a full-time career.
”

Dojcsak shrugged, as if he hadn’t even considered it
.

The boys had gathered in a small knot by the river, within sight of the temporary bandstand on which a folk quartet plucked out a reasonable cover of the Ian Tyson classic, “Four Strong Winds”. The Fourth of July celebrations were understandably subdued. Hadn’t the body of Shelly Hayden been discovered only yesterday?

After disappearing on the first of July, Shelly had resurfaced two days later, naked and dead, floating face up and wedged among a rough stone formation that extended from the shoreline, fifteen feet into the Hudson River at the base of the Church Falls dam. The water was turbulent here, the surface of the stone slick. The Fourth of July volunteers who had made the discovery made no effort to retrieve the body; to them, it was obvious the girl was dead.

Shelly’s orange hair swirled around her scalp like a halo, obscuring her face, embracing her torso like a shawl. Her limbs bobbed in the water with the spastic motion of a drunken marionette. The polish on Shelly’s seashell pink toenails was chipped, belying the care with which it had initially been applied. From a distance, there was no visible sign of injury. Closer inspection showed her skin to be split in places like the peel of a rotted orange. That the injuries occurred post-mortem was small comfort to the firefighters who had been assigned to pull Shelly from the water.

“She was dead as soon as she hit the river,” said Keith Chislett
.

“Says who?” asked Leland
.

“My old man,” Chislett replied. “He told Sheriff Womack. I heard them talking last night. My old man says she didn’t drown.” Then, “Says she wasn’t raped, neither.
”

Avoiding eye contact with McMaster, Chislett shot Dojcsak a glance, as if it hurt for him to confirm Dojcsak’s supposition.

Leland said, “Chislett, you’re full of shit. How could he know that?
”

Chislett shrugged. “Beats me. Something to do with water in her lungs.”

Leland said, “No, I mean about the other thing.”

Again, Chislett shrugged. “Who knows? Stick a Q-Tip up her pussy, I suppose they can tell anything.
”

“She didn’t drown?” asked Pardoe
.

“According to my old man, she didn’t,” said Chislett. Keith’s father, Graham, was County Coroner. After speaking with the Medical Examiner the previous evening, he was in a position to know
.

“How
did
she die?” asked Seamus Mcteer. “Is anyone saying?”

Mcteer was a new member to the group, who’d arrived recently from overseas. A portly redhead with a thick Scottish bur, his modest collection of “nudie” magazines had allowed him easy access to the tightly knit fraternity of high school friends. Mcteer hoped, during that summer, to obtain more explicit material, photos exposing what he referred to almost reverentially as
Bush
, as if it represented the Holy Grail. The genital area in his father’s limited inventory had been artistically edited out. Though he would never replace Leland McMaster as the center of attention with the boys, Seamus aimed to place a close second
.

Chislett continued. “Don’t know how she died, couldn’t hear after that. However it was, Womack don’t agree with my dad. They argued.” Then, as if in a bid to bolster his father’s reputation, he added, “Old man told him to fuck-off.”

The boys were quiet now, considering the possibilities. Each had been seen at the Big Top Diner three days before in the company of the dead girl and each had been questioned that same evening by the police, owing to her failure to return home. Sheriff Sidney Womack had not spoken to the boys again since, though with the discovery of the girl’s body he was scheduled to do so again, soon
.

Turning to Ed Dojcsak, Leland said, “G’me a smoke.” The muscles strained beneath his tee shirt like a spool of tightly wound cord
.

Dojcsak stooped, raised the cuff of his pant leg and retrieved a package of cigarettes secreted in the band of his white athletic socks.

McMaster laughed. “Scared your parents will find out?”

“Mom thinks I’m too young to smoke.
”

“Dojcsak,” McMaster said, “you’re a knob.”

“So you keep telling me,” Dojcsak said, “but if she finds out, you’ll have to start buying your own
, asshole
.”

McMaster agreed, nodding his head gravely. Despite being the eldest son of the wealthiest man in the county, Leland was always broke.

“Ed-ee-oh,” he said to Dojcsak, “let’s walk.”

They separated from the group, walking to the river, away from the bandstand and along a footpath where the crowd thinned out, toward the dam and a barrier that had been erected the previous year in an effort to keep curious visitors and reckless teens from wandering too far along the break wall. In summer, when the water was low and conditions dry, it wasn’t hazardous. But in the early spring and late fall, when water levels became elevated, the drop in temperature caused a thin film of ice to accumulate on the concrete, making the surface slick. Dojcsak wondered at the number of suicides here who had been classified mistakenly as accidental death. After all, a walk along the break wall at any time between December and March guaranteed, to someone looking, virtually the same result
.

They crossed over the barrier, ignoring the warning that read, “No Unauthorized Personnel Beyond This Point”, and stood on a promontory overlooking the river. Tons of water came together below them in a swirling mass, making conversation difficult.

“She was found there,” McMaster said, pointing.

Dojcsak acknowledged with a shrug, mesmerized by the roar of rushing water and the gauzy mist rising from its surface.

“So, Ed” Leland said, “Any plans for next year
?
”

Dojcsak dropped his shoulders: it was a question he had asked of himself, and been unable to answer. Like the shadow of the Grim Reaper, the Draft hung that summer over the head of every able bodied young man between the ages of seventeen and twenty who lacked the grade point average to secure an early admission to a decent college or university. Dojcsak, lacking both in aptitude and achievement, was overwhelmed by the possibility of being shipped from Church Falls to Hanoi
.

“My old man wants to send me away,” Leland said. “To college, out of state. Says it will save me a tour of duty, being shipped home in a pine box.” Leland grinned. Dojcsak shuddered. “Rather stay on at the dealership. Old man did okay, didn’t he? So did my grandpa. Between the two of them, not even a grade school education.” Leland paused, and apropos of nothing said, “I knew her, Ed.
”

Dojcsak turned. “You knew who?”

“Don’t be a knob: the dead chick.”

“Yeah, well, we all did, kind of.”

“Yeah, well,” mocked Leland, “I kind of knew her better than most.” McMaster launched his cigarette butt into the water with a flick from his forefinger and thumb
.

“You never said,” replied Dojcsak.

“Should I have?”

“When it comes to chicks, you usually do.”
Chicks
: on Dojcsak’s tongue, the word sounded fals
e.

“I knew her, Ed, okay. Good; real, real, good. Do I need to draw you a picture?” Leland did not bother to elaborate
.

Dojcsak flushed. Turning away, he said, “She’s dead, Lee; not something I’d brag on, I were you.”

“She put out, Ed; the chick was no angel, you know.

“But the cops said
—
”

Before Dojcsak finished, Leland interrupted. “What, Ed? What did the fuzz say? That she wasn’t fucked? Ed-ee-oh, you’re a knob. Not that day maybe, but believe me, the chick put out; she rode the greased pony. And not only me; she had a reputation.
”

With nothing to say, Dojcsak didn’t. Down river the celebration continued, though Dojcsak imagined Americans less in need these days of celebration than distraction, what with the recent conviction of Lieutenant William Calley in the premeditated slaughter of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai and the dour Tricky Dick Nixon appearing nightly in homes across the nation, unapologetic for the violence or the mounting civilian casualties, warning of the prospect for more to come.

Where people had gathered, puffs of white smoke could be seen rising from a dozen barbecues ignited and set up around a perimeter of green space; a dime for a hotdog, fifteen cents for a soda, forty cents for two of each. People danced. Over the roar of rushing water, Dojcsak couldn’t hear the music, but the sway of bodies was proof enough it was there.

Leland dragged a hand through a tangle of thick blonde hair. In profile, his good looks were undeniable. He was handsome, though lacked the generosity in his sharp features that would make him truly appealing. Perhaps, Dojcsak thought, it would come with age; and, perhaps, it wouldn’t.

“She was fourteen, Ed. Fourteen-freakin’-years-old. How was I supposed to know? She looked eighteen to me.
”

“Sure she did, Lee, which is why you didn’t show her off?” Dojcsak recalled an image of Shelly Hayden; the yellow sundress, the orange hair, the freckles, and the bright pink toes. Who could blame him? They had all thought her to be older. “How long were you poking her?”

“Since summer started,” Leland answered
.

“You saw her later that day, after we split up, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Leland admitted. “Unfortunately.” He seemed to consider before saying, “But I didn’t touch her, not a finger. Never had a chance. Bitch told me to piss off, Ed; can you believe it?” McMaster spat toward the river. Turning to face Dojcsak, he postured like a peacock. “Can you believe it? She told me to piss off. Who wouldn’t want a piece of this?
”

Dojcsak rolled his burning cigarette between his fingers until the paper split. The shaved tobacco began to spill out in small slivers, carried down river on the wind. “You must have been pissed-off.”

Without thinking, McMaster said, “Yeah, felt like wringing her neck.”

“Did you tell Sidney?”

“Tell him what? That I was with her?
That I felt like wringing her neck?
Ed, am I as dumb as you look?” Leland said. “Don’t be a knob. Of course I didn’t. And give me another smoke.
”

“Eat me,” Dojcsak said
.

“You wish. Now give.
”

Dojcsak complied, and said, “If you admit to him you knew her, it will look as if you were hiding something.
”

“Yeah, but if I say nothing and he finds out anyway?”

“I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut.”

“You were me, Ed, you wouldn’t be such a knob.”

They smoked. After a while, Dojcsak asked, “What will you do?”

“Fucked if I know,” replied Leland. “But I didn’t do it, Ed, which does me no good. If Womack finds out I was feeling her up, he’ll skin me alive.” Leland inhaled deeply on his cigarette. “I could go to my old man.”