Death in Dark Places

by Drew Franzen

  Womack rotated his chair ninety-degrees so that he faced outside. Restless, he stood and moved to the window. From his office he had a clear view across the Town Square, north over the river to the fields and the Adirondacks beyond. To his right, the Tongue Mountain Range was just visible, a splash of watercolor brushed with an errant stroke across the horizon. In autumn, the trees would erupt in a brief cacophony of color, an intermittent outburst in their transition from green to dead-brown.

  Womack propped open his office window with a hardcover copy of “The Catcher In The Rye” in the vain hope of catching a breeze that wasn’t there. The day was still and warm, with the cicadas buzzing like power saws in the trees by his window. Muted tones of random conversation floated from the Town Square below, the words indistinguishable but to his practiced ear the meaning transparent. Interesting, he mused, what could be gleaned from a tone of voice: hope, exasperation, happiness, and despair, proving conclusively that it isn’t what you say, but how you say it.

  Womack reached into the top left drawer of his desk, extracting a “Baby Ruth”. He removed the wrapper and observed his midriff, the bulge that during the past month had grown from a gentle swell. In two bites, he devoured the bar.

  On the thirtieth of June, he had smoked what he promised to his wife would be his final cigarette, the day before Shelly Hayden disappeared and four days before her body was found. Womack bemoaned the weight gain and his poor timing but a promise was a promise. “More of you to love,” his wife reassured him. “Like making love to two men,” he’d said in return. “Or to someone else,” she teased.

  He sat. Returning his attention to the file, Womack reviewed his notes.

  During the evening of Shelly Hayden’s disappearance, he’d taken the time to question the teens with whom she had been seen earlier that day. The morning following the disappearance, State Troopers had assisted him in rousting a rag-tag group of transients who had established a makeshift community up river from town; a small collection of dilapidated house trailers and tents. Though they were dirty and Womack suspected they were using drugs, there was no evidence to suggest they were involved with the disappearance of the girl. To Womack, they seemed harmless, though worthy of oversight.

  Shelly’s mother had reported her missing the previous evening, at eight. At first, Womack had not been convinced, suspecting the woman of hysteria. After all, it’s a small town and not much happens in a small town. Despite assurances from the Sheriff that her daughter would surface (Womack unable to know at the time how prophetic would be his words) Shelly’s mother was not satisfied. Pressed, Womack had little choice but to follow up and initiate inquiries.

  By nine-thirty that evening he’d confirmed that Shelly had parted company with the girls on the sidewalk fronting the Big Top Diner, about the time they had separated from the boys. Shelly had claimed as her reason a previously scheduled engagement to drive to Albany with her mother, to meet for dinner with her dad, a claim disputed, subsequently, by Mrs. Hayden. By midnight, the child had neither reappeared nor telephoned home. Womack was compelled to notify the State Police.

  Three days after Shelly disappeared and the day after her body was discovered wedged among the rocks at the base of the Church Falls dam, Womack made a follow-up visit to the home of Leland and Neal McMaster.

  Earlier that same evening he had questioned Keith Chislett, Andy Pardoe, Seamus Mcteer, and Ed Dojcsak. Dojcsak was a distant cousin to Womack, twice removed and whose antecedents—Womack imagined—had immigrated to America from Czechoslovakia on the same boat as his own ancestors. Aside from a passing physical resemblance between the two, the blood bond was tenuous. Of the four boys, only Dojcsak had been willing to speak. Though he had not incriminated Leland McMaster, he said enough in an effort to protect him that Sidney became curious, if not yet suspicious.

  Sitting across from Leland, he asked, “You say you were with them, but not really.”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy replied. “I was just hanging out, you know, not sitting with anybody in particular. The others were sitting at a table, drinking Cokes and eating fries.”

  “Why didn’t you join them?” Womack asked.

  “I don’t know them all that well.”

  “You don’t know them all that well?”

  It may have been his tone, or perhaps his demeanor, but Leland recognized something in Womack that caused him to add, “Well, I do. Just some of them not all that well.”

  Womack asked, “Who do you know, who don’t you know, son?”

  Leland was tempted to reply: You’re not my fucking father. Instead, he pushed a hand through his long blonde hair as if it might help him to recall, and said, “Dojcsak, Chislett, Mcteer and Pardoe. The girls? None of them all that well.”

  “ Shelly Hayden?” Womack asked.

  “No, sir, not her. Only to see on the street, you know.”

  “They’re your friends; why didn’t you join them?” Womack repeated the question, patient.

  Leland McMaster bowed his head. From beneath a strand of blonde hair, he looked to his father. Leland McMaster Sr. had been present during the interview. He had asked neither if he could stay, nor if he should leave.

  “Well, you see, sir,” he said to Womack, hesitant, “I smoke. They didn’t want me smoking at the table.”

  “Hardly a crime, Sidney,” Leland Sr. said, speaking for the first time in defense of his son, puffing on his own filtered cigarette. “Boys smoke.”

  “And you?” Womack said, turning his attention to the younger brother. “Were you at the table with Shelly, or do you smoke too?”

  “Me?” said Neal, startled, as if he were surprised to be asked the question. “Smoke?”

  “Did you sit at a table with Shelly Hayden?” Womack repeated.

  “Me?” Neal said again. “Yeah, I guess so. I guess I did, sure.”

  Womack studied the boys. Leland shared his father’s height and good looks. At seventeen, his shoulders had yet to fill out, though his bone structure indicated he would inherit the Senior McMaster’s physique. He was articulate, well mannered, excelled both academically and at sport and was what most in this small town referred to as an altogether “fine young man”. By contrast, Neal suffered from poor grades and refused to be involved in the extracurricular activities that might help to redefine his reputation as an outcast. His stubby arms and legs were visibly too short for his torso, his dark hair trimmed in a bowl shape around his skull. Neal resembled a Neanderthal, an illustration from a poster on a science room wall; Cro-Magnon mans’ inevitable evolution to modern, with Neal McMaster constituting a living, missing link.

  “You didn’t sit together,” Womack said now, “but you left together, at three.”

  “That’s right,” said Leland. “I left with Dojcsak—Ed. He’s always good for a few smokes and I’d run out.” Leland then added, “You won’t tell his parents will you?” as if that were the most egregious of their possible transgressions. “We walked down by the band shell, looking to help. It’s usually good for a couple bucks, but the workers had left early for the day.”

  “And you didn’t see anyone while you were there?”

  “People sure, but no one we knew.”

  “Strangers?”

  “Not exactly strangers, just no one we knew.”

  “Not the girl?” Womack asked.

  “No, sir, not the girl,” Leland said. “Though I hear she was popular.”

  “Oh? Popular how?” asked Sidney.

  “I shouldn’t say, sir, speak ill of the dead and all that.” It was a remark unbecoming of a seventeen going on eighteen-year-old. A clumsy effort by Leland, Sidney thought at the time, to disparage the victim.

  “You can’t hurt her now, Leland,” Womack said, “She’s already dead. It’s not my job to protect her reputation.”

  Satisfied, Leland continued. “It’s only what people say, what I hear, not what I know first hand. Apparently, the chick was no angel
.”

  “No angel? What exactly does that mean, Leland? ‘No angel’.”

  “Don’t be dense, Sid,” answered the boy’s father. “It means she put out. It means you should look to her reputation, not to the boys.”

  Womack was forced, grudgingly, to agree. It reinforced the image of Shelly Hayden emerging in the whispers and asides now circulating among her neighbors and friends, to which Sidney—regretfully—was himself, not immune. So what if Leland Junior lied about how well he knew the girl? Given her reputation and now her death, it appeared as if half the male, teenage population in town might be compelled to lie about how well they were acquainted with Shelly Hayden. Womack uttered a silent curse, and asked, “You came straight home?”

  “Uh-huh, yes, sir,” Leland said. “Straight home.”

  “And you were home by when?”

  “By seven. Ed and I came back along the river. I stopped in town to grab a Pepsi before walking home, alone. That was at six. I got home maybe half an hour later—it takes that long to walk here from town—and made myself a sandwich. I hadn’t eaten at the restaurant. Sandwich spoiled my dinner.” He smiled. “Ask, Ed, he’ll tell you.”

  “Tell him about the boy,” Leland Senior said. His emphasis caused Womack to shudder reflexively and stiffen in anticipation.

  “The boy?” Womack asked Leland Junior.

  “C’mon, Dad. It’s not important, is it?”

  “Tell him,” said the father. “Let the man decide for himself. He’s the professional.” Professional uttered more in contradiction than affirmation.

  “What boy?” Womack wanted to know.

  “Drew Bitson,” Leland Junior replied.

  “What about him?” Womack said.

  “It’s not my nature to cause trouble, sir.”

  “Tell me about the boy, Leland,” Womack said, skeptical of the young man’s claim. To him, Leland McMaster Junior was trouble.

  ”Well, it’s just that he was there, too. You know, kind of hanging around. I’m not sure the girls were okay with that, if you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t; tell me. Why shouldn’t the girls be okay with it, Leland? Was Drew pestering them?”

  “Well, I wasn’t sitting at the table you know, as I said, but I could sense they were uncomfortable. He was smiling, you know, kind of goofy-like, as if something was funny. They weren’t.”

  Despite possessing what his wife described as the patience of wet paint waiting to dry, Womack snapped, “Don’t be cryptic; who wasn’t what, Leland?”

  “Smiling,” the boy said. “The girls weren’t smiling.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Before he could explain, the boy’s father crossed the floor to his son, placed a protective hand to Leland’s shoulder and said, “The boy is colored, Sidney, the girl is white. According to Lee, he was making off-color jokes. (Did Sidney detect a smirk, a faint twist of the lip suggesting McMaster was pleased at his turn of words?) The conclusion is as obvious as that. I’m sure Jimmy Cromwell would agree, if you were to ask,” McMaster said, invoking the name of the County Prosecutor.

  Womack could think of nothing more to say. Less than one hour after arriving, he was gone, the uneasy bubble in his stomach heating to a boil.

  On the evening of the disappearance, before they had a body, he had spoken with the boys individually, in their own homes. They each had given a similar account of the afternoon and their subsequent whereabouts after parting company with the girls at the diner. The story was simple, short on detail and indistinct, as he’d expect from a group of carefree teenagers on summer vacation, careless about the time and what they did with it. They’d left the Big Top Diner together, they’d left in pairs; they arrived home by six, or maybe it was closer to seven; Dojcsak left with Leland, Chislett left with Pardoe; Dojcsak paid, Leland was broke; Mcteer left on his own, or he left with the girls. Or perhaps it was the other way round?

  Call me if you think of anything else, Womack said that first night, doubtful the boys would. With the discovery of the corpse, however, an odd thing occurred. On his second visit, the accounts seemed to crystallize, become embellished with a richness of detail and exactitude lacking three days before, as if the boys had been seeking deliberately to account for their time, whereabouts, and activity. Under pressure from Sidney, Ed Dojcsak had confessed, “Lee may have known her. We all did, kind of. But he didn’t hurt her.”

  “How do you know?” Womack wondered.

  “He told me so,” Dojcsak replied confidently.

  “Did Lee pay for his meal that afternoon, Ed, or did someone pay for him?”

  “Not sure. Is it important?”

  “It may be,” Womack acknowledged.

  Dojcsak furrowed his brow, as if thinking. “Nah, he was broke. Shelly may have paid for him, though.”

  Womack retrieved a second “Baby Ruth”, removed the wrapper and attacked this bar more slowly than he had the first, taking his time to savor the chocolate, the nougat, the nuts and the distinct flavor created by the combination of all three. Still facing the window, he placed his boots on the sill and tried to settle his bulk comfortably in the unforgiving wood chair. The cicadas had gone silent. In the courtyard, the shadows were long, stretched out over the grass by the shifting aspect of a setting sun. Soon they would disappear altogether. A slight breeze kicked up, made its way through his open window and agitated the papers on his desk. Womack placed his palm flat down on the Hayden file.

  “Be still, Shelly Hayden,” he said, “be still.”

  Since its founding in eighteen thirty-three there had never been a homicide in Church Falls. The town was an insignificant stop on the road between Albany and Lake George, without even its own highway interchange. With a population of only four thousand, half of who are children themselves, Sidney thought before leaving for the day, how many child killers can there possibly be?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SOMETIMES, JENNY DOJCSAK spoke aloud as if she was speaking to a therapist. This wasn’t so unusual except for the fact that recently Jenny had begun to answer herself back, dispensing precious nuggets of advice as if she was a qualified Ph.D.

  On the Monday morning after the murder of Missy Bitson, the conversation went like this.

  Jenny the Therapist: “How does that make you feel?”

  Jenny the Patient: “How do you think it makes me feel?”

  Jenny the Therapist, smiling knowingly: “Like shit.”

  Jenny the Patient: “You really do understand.”

  Therapist: “When it comes to our parents, we all share the same burden, Jen; it’s the job of parents, to make their children feel like shit. After all, children are never what we expect, are they? Bound to disappoint in one way or another. Not as if they don’t have adequate opportunity, is it? From toilet training to raising children of their own, parents give their spawn plenty of opportunity to fuck-up. You shouldn’t take it so personally.”

  Patient, feeling inadequate: “But I feel sooo guilty.”

  Therapist, with an audible harrumph: “Don’t be naive, Jen, you’re sister is dying, you’re not. That’s why you feel guilty.”

  Patient: “So, I should feel guilty?”

  Therapist: “Guilt is pretty harsh, but you should feel awful. Do you, Jenny? Feel awful for the fact your sister is dying, and you’re not dying?”

  Patient: “Well…when you put it that way…”

  Therapist: “If you could, would you change places with Luba? Trade your life for hers?”

  Patient: “Well...I…I…”

  Therapist: “Quickly, quickly, it’s not that difficult a question.”

  Patient, becoming upset: “Well…I…I…”

  Therapist, in no mood to beat around the bush or to mince words: “Breeep; wrong answer. No wonder Ed is so disappointed. You’re selfish, Jen.”

  Patient: “I am?”

  Therapist, emphatically: “It’s no wonder you feel guil
ty. It’s all about you, isn’t it?”

  Patient: “I don’t know… I mean, I don’t think so.”

  Therapist: “Problem with you, Jen?”

  Patient, unsure if Therapist is expecting her to complete the sentence, which in any case requires from Patient a degree of self-awareness she does not possess.

  Therapist: “Look at yourself, Jen.”

  Patient, reluctantly, observes self in mirror: dark eye make-up haphazardly applied, hair greasy and poorly cut, nose-ring, tongue-ring, eyebrow-ring and multiple piercing of both ears.

  Therapist: “Only selfish people draw attention to themselves this way. So, again; problem with you?”

  Patient, understanding: “I’m selfish.”

  Therapist: “Breeep; wrong answer. You can’t be selfish with something you don’t possess. What don’t you possess, Jen?”

  Patient: “Well…I…I…”

  Therapist: “C’mon girl, this isn’t rocket science.”

  Patient, continuing to observe self in mirror: “Looks?”

  Therapist: “That’s good, that’s a start, but I would have said beauty, like your friend Missy Bitson.”

  Patient, unnerved, continues: “Friends?”

  Therapist: “Atta’ girl, you’re on a roll.”

  Patient, with more conviction: “Affection?”

  Therapist, à la Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady: “By George, I think she’s got it.”

  Patient: “Love.”

  Therapist: “I think our time here is up. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about your father.”

  …

  Dressed in sweat pants and a tattered long-sleeved tee shirt—what for her passed as pajamas—Jenny lay on her unmade bed. Pulling herself from the mattress, she walked to the window and opened it wide. She ignited a cigarette from a package on her bedside table. Sitting on the sill, she smoked. She emptied her lungs into the chill morning air, savoring the burn, luxuriating in the slight lightheadedness she received from her first cigarette of the day. If Rena found her smoking upstairs, she’d have a shit.