Death in Dark Places

by Drew Franzen

  One week to the day she was discovered in the alley behind her father’s store and lacking sufficient cause not to, Abby Friedman released the body of Missy Bitson to the care of Shuttleworth and Brown Funeral Home. Though degradation was apparent it was not yet severe.

  Working all-day and late into the evening, by Monday morning the principals at Shuttleworth and Brown had effected a reasonable, if not exact, representation of the dead girl, thus saving the aggrieved parents the added indignity and inevitable innuendo of a closed casket ceremony. Missy’s complexion was off, commented some, and her cheeks too wide, noted others. The nose was much too flat (serving to highlight her African American roots), but in all, most agreed that Missy appeared peaceful and life-like, contrary to the circumstances surrounding her violent death.

  On the church steps, Dojcsak smoked. Sara shuffled her feet restlessly while Christopher Burke scanned the gathering as if searching for visible evidence of apparent guilt. Anticipating a crowd larger than could be accommodated within the church, Cassie McMaster had ordered loudspeakers to be erected outside, in order that those wishing could accompany in song and prayer those sitting inside.

  “Just like the movies,” Burke said. “Do you think the killer is here?”

  “Odds are,” said Sara. “Half the town is here, Chris.”

  The casket had not yet arrived. Christopher was right, Dojcsak thought. Not so much like a movie, but the nightly network news, the scene reminiscent of images of the post Columbine tragedy or Sandy Hook, and the subsequent burials, attended in the hundreds by visitors acquainted only remotely with the deceased.

  “Should have called in the Highway Patrol,” said Dojcsak referring to the street and a scrum of haphazardly and illegally parked vehicles.

  When it arrived, it was necessary for Burke to clear a space for the hearse to park, together with the limousine transporting immediate family members. Regardless of her mortal popularity, in death Missy Bitson had certainly managed to draw a crowd, confirming to Dojcsak once again the legitimacy of the six degrees of separation. (Or is it Kevin Bacon? Inwardly, for the first time that day, Dojcsak smiled.)

  Among the pallbearers was Jordy Bitson. Wearing a dark suit with white shirt and dark tie, Jordy appeared somber, though not exactly stricken by grief: diminutive yet somehow menacing, Sara observed. Maggie Bitson followed her daughter’s casket, unsteady, supported on one arm by Eugene, on the other by Mandy. Backlit by the bright sunshine, Sara noted that Mandy’s dress appeared to be navy, not black. In the afternoon light and at the right angle, her silhouette showed provocatively, and while Mandy wore panties she undoubtedly had not thought—or chosen—to wear a slip. (What is her mother thinking? Sara thought, unconsciously recalling her own mother’s admonition: you shouldn’t be looking.)

  Inside, standing with Sara at the rear of the church, Dojcsak appeared ill, as if afflicted with flu. “Sit, Ed, before you collapse,” she whispered. Dojcsak waved her off even as he felt himself waver. Burke scanned the crowd, still searching diligently for visible evidence of apparent guilt, his attention mostly on Eugene, as if the double whammy of grief and contrition might force him to fall wailing upon his daughter’s casket in a combined plea for mercy and salvation. (Burke would like to prove Eugene guilty, if only to contradict Ed.)

  Cassie McMaster stood at the altar, administering to the victim what Burke assumed, but couldn’t precisely be sure, was the equivalent of Last Rites. At almost six foot, she was imposing, the sermon authoritative in both timbre and intent. Did Cassie wear clothing beneath her vestments, he mused? If so, was it street clothing or merely panties and bra? Burke imagined her naked beneath her devotional garb. His libido stirred. He sensed Pridmore beside him, watching disapprovingly, as if reading his thoughts. Unbidden, he imagined a three-way including Sara and Cassie; as a Catholic in an Episcopal Church, Burke was inclined to experience neither guilt nor shame.

  They had reached The Commendation. The congregation was ordered to stand while Cassie read: “Our sister has fallen asleep in the peace of Christ. We commit her, with faith and hope in everlasting life, to the loving mercy of our Father, and assist her with our prayers. In baptism she was made by adoption a child of God. At the Lord’s Table she was sustained and fed. May she now be welcomed at the Table of God’s children in Heaven and share in eternal life with all the Saints.”

  When finished, Cassie asked the congregation to be seated while the organist played, The Lark Ascending, by Ralph Vaughan Williams. She considered this piece to be one of the twentieth century’s most evocative Pastorals, described by Williams himself as an English landscape transcribed into musical terms. Outside, feedback reverberated from the makeshift speaker system, for Cassie somewhat tarnishing the effect.

  Placed four rows back from the Alter and physically removed from his immediate family, Leland McMaster sat with his wife, the death of his granddaughter apparently unable to breach the schism borne of emotional estrangement and time. Sitting in her wheel chair, Helen partially blocked the center aisle: younger than her husband by a dozen years, she was now ravaged, looking a dozen years his senior, her body an image of premature decay.

  Alcohol had wreaked havoc on the physiological body and spiritual soul of Helen McMaster. Dojcsak recognized the signs of acute drink. A habitual DUI, Dojcsak recalled how, on many occasions as a young deputy, he had been called upon to detain the forty-something Helen for driving her Cadillac recklessly about town while under the influence. Often at the request of her husband—Leland unwilling to subject his reputation to the humiliation of having to do it himself—Dojcsak was summoned to retrieve the drunken wife from a local bar, to rescue her from the groping and clutching grasp of a drunken stranger. Generally on these occasions, Dojcsak himself was forced on the drive home to resist Helen’s alcohol fueled sexual advances.

  With her bottle blonde hair askew, lipstick running in a splotch of wild color from mouth to cheek, and with her skirt hiked well beyond the point of decency, Dojcsak wondered why Leland didn’t simply divorce the woman and have done with it. She was, after all, a nuisance and a disgrace. She could not possibly be an accommodating partner or able mother to her young family. Only later did Dojcsak understand that for Helen, alcohol was a symptom of a more insidious disease.

  Afterward, at the home of Maggie and Eugene Bitson, there was food and drink. Believing it would at best be unsympathetic and at worst an unnecessary provocation, Dojcsak decided neither Pridmore nor Burke should attend.

  As a neighbor, though six blocks (six degrees?) removed, Dojcsak attended as a private citizen. He mingled among the mourners, as if by telepathy hoping to feel their pain. Dojcsak helped himself to refreshments; beer, mini-sausages, buns, assorted cold cuts, cheese cubes and sliced vegetables with some type of creamy dip that Dojcsak feared might upset his stomach.

  Faces both familiar and not so familiar passed through his line of vision, reluctant to engage the County Sheriff in conversation. Understandable, he decided. What could they say? Any leads Ed? realizing even then the most reasonable suspects were here in the room with them. (Dojcsak wished Rena were here as a distraction, so as for him not to appear so conspicuous.)

  Many of Missy’s friends had returned to school after the service, judiciously eschewing the Bitson home, while others used the funeral as an excuse to skip class. Only a few, of who Dojcsak assumed to be close friends, were present.

  Stomach churning as he expected, Dojcsak helped himself to a third beer, loosened the knot in his necktie and ruminated on what might be a respectable time before leaving. It would be indelicate to initiate an interrogation here, and besides, Dojcsak lacked the enthusiasm. Across the room, Cassie McMaster pulled herself from a small knot of mourners, moving in Dojcsak’s direction like a battle ship, standing opposite him as if to speak.

  Before she could, he said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Why be sorry? You didn’t kill her.”

  “Figure of speech. It was a fine
service.”

  She eyed his beer critically. “I’m glad you approve. It’s more difficult when it’s someone close. Harder to draw comfort from the words, to believe they’re anything but empty rhetoric, even when I’m delivering them myself.” Cassie’s dark hair was a sharp contrast to her pale skin. She was gaunt and drawn, but still an obviously attractive woman. “It’s the first time I’ve presided over the burial of a family member. Not much solace in that, almost enough to shake your faith in your chosen vocation. In fact, it’s enough to shake your faith in God.” Cassie smiled, irony rather than humor.

  “Rena tells me you’ll bury our daughter.”

  “Unless you have other plans.”

  Dojcsak shrugged. “No,” he said. “No other plans; without a miracle, she’ll die.”

  Cassie sipped from a glass of red wine. “And you, Sheriff?”

  “Me, die? Eventually, yes, I suppose.”

  “Faith, Sheriff, I was speaking of your faith. Is yours shaken by this?”

  Dojcsak, presuming she was speaking of the murder, replied thoughtfully, “Well, for it to be shaken, I suppose I’d have had to have it in the first place.”

  “A cynic.”

  “A pragmatist, Reverend.”

  “Call me Cassie. Only my parishioners refer to me as Reverend and to my knowledge, you don’t attend church.”

  Dojcsak smiled. “As I say, I’m a pragmatist.”

  “Without faith? No, Sheriff: that’s an optimist.”

  “No; an optimist expects the best. When it doesn’t occur, he hopes for the best. I neither expect nor hope either way.”

  “I hope you’re able to muster more conviction for the investigation of Missy’s killing, Sheriff. You don’t inspire great confidence.”

  “Except for the obvious, my conviction has less to do with the outcome than chance, I’m afraid. The chance someone will come forward to tell us what they know; the chance we find a clue that points us to the killer; the chance he’ll confess. Who knows?”

  Dojcsak shrugged his shoulders while aggressively massaging his cheeks. He hadn’t shaved since before the funeral service: without a razor, he seemed intent to rub the whiskers clean from his face with the palm of a calloused hand. Cassie noted this, putting it down to the unseasonable spring heat combined with what appeared to be a painful looking rash spread across the skin of the Sheriff’s jowls and lower jaw.

  “The case is hopeless, then?”

  Dojcsak lowered his voice to respond. “Not entirely. You do know the killer; how could you not? Someone Missy either trusted or knew. She had sex willingly; she was neither raped nor physically coerced. I’ve told this to your sister. She’s in a state of denial, I think.”

  “Sara seems to believe it may have something to do with our cousin. Jordy, on Eugene’s side of the family.”

  Dojcsak sipped his beer, draining the bottle. His eyes scanned the room, pausing a brief moment to focus on Jordy Bitson, drinking beer and who by now had removed his sport jacket and necktie. Dojcsak would not make an issue here, of the boy drinking underage. If his parents didn’t object, why should he?

  “You’ve been speaking to Sara? About the case?”

  Cassie blushed, her flushed skin a stark contrast to her snow-white collar. “She dropped by on the weekend, to ask specifically about some of the kids Missy knew. I told her Jordy was a bad one, that Missy and he had been close and that I didn’t approve.” Dojcsak eyed her skeptically. “That’s all, Sheriff.” Cassie became defensive. “She didn’t compromise your case, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I wasn’t, only that you failed to mention this to Christopher Burke; your concern over Jordy. You remember Christopher don’t you? Tall, good looking young kid? He spoke to you last Monday, on the day following the murder.”

  “It was a crazy day, Sheriff. Obviously, I wasn’t thinking about reasonable suspects at the time.” Cassie was tempted to add: And since your Deputy seemed more preoccupied with my tits than his line of questioning, I wasn’t anxious for him to overstay his welcome.

  Dojcsak said, “If you had mentioned it, you could have saved us all a lot of trouble and time.”

  Lowering her voice, Cassie said, “Why? Is Jordy your only suspect?”

  Dojcsak seemed to think before answering. Finally, he said, “Things are shaping up and Jordy is certainly a person of interest.”

  “Not the same as being guilty, Sheriff.”

  “Without an eyewitness, guilt is a matter of degree, not an absolute certainty.”

  “I wouldn’t give a ducat for the boy’s prospects, but I’d hate to see him hang on a hunch.”

  Dojcsak eyed her critically. “You’re being too harsh. You turned your life around, didn’t you, Reverend? Perhaps the boy is made of sterner stuff.”

  Cassie acknowledged her own troubled youth, curious that Dojcsak had put himself in a position, now, of seeming to defend the boy. “Possibly he is,” she said. “But given his upbringing, I wouldn’t lay odds.”

  “Speaking of which,” Dojcsak said, “how is your father?”

  They drifted apart after a while, Cassie to Maggie, Dojcsak to the door. After a fourth beer, he decided it was reasonable for him to leave. Maggie Bitson appeared composed now though somehow empty, as if she would collapse inward if nudged by even a weak breeze. Eugene appeared to be recovering, somewhat stooped, but no tears, and Dojcsak had seen him even smile once or twice. Jordy Bitson worked a small crowd of teenagers like he was the guest of honor. Mandy Bitson followed in his wake. Kendra Bitson sat alone in a corner looking forlorn, as if having difficulty digesting her own black thoughts. The grandparents of Missy Bitson were not present, Leland returning to the dealership immediately upon leaving the church service, but not before securing for Helen a drive home.

  Outside it was dark. It had begun to rain. Dojcsak gathered his coat collar around his neck, stepping carefully from the stoop to the front walk. The air was brisk, but Dojcsak had begun to sweat. His bulk felt heavy, as if too great a burden for his legs. Others left with him, starting their vehicles, igniting headlights, the glare from the rain-spattered sidewalk making it difficult for him to see. For the second time in a week, Dojcsak cursed his neglect, promising himself that tomorrow he would have Rena telephone the pharmacy to refill an eyeglasses prescription long overdue. He would telephone Doctor Henry Bauer himself, to reschedule the latest in a string of appointments he had either cancelled or ignored.

  Leaving the Bitson home that evening, Ed Dojcsak was feeling no better for either his own prospects or those of his ongoing investigation.

  CHURCH FALLS, SOMETIME IN THE SEVENTIES

  “HOW COULD YOU do it, Ed?” asked Leland McMaster, eyes wide as if someone had pinned back the lids with tacks. His expression was uncomprehending, as if he were struggling with an inevitability he didn’t quite understand. Leland’s normally meticulous blonde hair was greasy, stuck to his forehead in places as if it needed a wash. Though it was faint, Dojcsak detected the shadow of whisker on Leland’s chin. He ran an exploratory finger over his own smooth jaw. “Why would you do it?”

  They were standing at the head of Church Falls Bluffs, in the same spot where County Coroner Keith Chislett suspected Shelly Hayden had taken her fatal plunge. Earlier, Leland had telephoned Dojcsak in a panic, insisting they meet. Privately, Dojcsak was hoping his friend had already been shipped overseas.

  “Why blame me?” Dojcsak asked. He lit a cigarette, tossed the match seventy-five feet down into the swirling water of the gorge. Had Shelly Hayden descended so gracefully? Dojcsak didn’t think so, imagining the slap as her body hit the water. “You were the one screwing her.”

  Leland buried his face in his hands, shaking his head as if to clear it of some obstruction. “Christ, Ed,” he said, “just because I fucked her doesn’t mean I killed her. How many times do I have to say it?”

  “She was only fourteen,” Dojcsak said.

  Leland blus
hed, as if he’d been caught masturbating by his mother. “Make yourself useful, Ed; give me a cigarette.”

  “Same old Lee,” Dojcsak said as he passed him the package.

  Leland accepted and said, “I thought we had a deal, Ed. So tell me, really, why are you doing this?”

  Why indeed? Even to Dojcsak it was a fair question. Even to him the apparent answer was obvious: envy. Dojcsak was envious of Leland’s good looks, the force of his personality, his instinctively imperious manner and Lee’s easy ability to attract new friends, of either gender. For Dojcsak, struggling at the time to recognize and define his own better qualities, Lee McMaster was a measure against which Ed would somehow, always, be lacking.

  But if the apparent answer was obvious, Dojcsak was self-consciously aware that the relationship between the two revealed a more complicated dynamic. Though Ed sometimes begrudged Leland his good looks and the injustice that concentrates in some people all the best ones, why then did he consider his friend awkwardly appealing? While he resented Leland’s affectations, in his absence why did Dojcsak borrow heavily from them, or aspire to his imperious manner? Dojcsak disapproved of, yet at the same time coveted McMaster’s friends, Leland the proxy by which Dojcsak had any friends at all. (You don’t want to be like him, Lucy the therapist would say if speaking with Charlie Brown, you want to be him.)

  They smoked. Dojcsak said, “You have a sister, Lee. How old is Maggie these days? Twelve, thirteen?”

  “Maggie is nine, Ed.”

  Dojcsak considered this. “She looks older.”

  “Yeah,” Leland replied “Cause she has tits. Small, but tits.”

  “How would you like it if someone was feeling up Maggie?”

  Now it was Leland’s turn to consider his response. What could he say? My father beat me to it? At times, in bed, listening to Maggie’s muted squeals, Leland wondered if his own predisposition was inherited from his dad. It concerned him only in so much as he might eventually have a daughter of his own.