Death in Dark Places

by Drew Franzen

  Before Jenny entered, Sara called out. “Tell your friend to see a doctor, Jen.” In the yellow overhead light, Sara could see Jenny’s confusion. “The girl was infected, Jen; HIV. If Jordy is so innocent, he has nothing to fear. If not, well, I guess the laugh’s on him, eh?”

  Confusion gone, Jenny entered her home, an expression of hatred knotting her face. Across the street, the Bitson home was dark. Sara imagined Jordy sitting at the window, observing the conversation, twisting his fists anxiously, wanting but unable to overhear.

  …

  Inside her home, Jennifer Dojcsak telephoned Jordy Bitson: no answer. She left a message on his mobile. Next, she sent a text: no reply. Would Jordy be thankful for her loyalty, grateful and indebted? And if he wasn’t? Well then, Jenny thought viciously, fuck him.

  …

  Sara turned toward town, subconsciously hoping Dojcsak would appear from around the corner, recognize her and stop so they might talk.

  Missy had eaten on the day of her murder, Sara thought now, as a couple, Dojcsak said, prior to being killed. According to the cash register receipt, the other half of the couple had a healthy appetite. Despite two days during which both Pridmore and Burke had questioned the staff at the fast food outlet, no one recalled having either served or seen Missy Bitson. They had distributed flyers with the victim’s photo, asking anyone who might have seen her that day to please come forward. They had posted photocopies on grocery and convenience store bulletin boards among the items to sell, help wanted, and help for hire notices. They had canvassed and asked questions from one end of town to the other, but on the day she died no one could recall having seen Missy Bitson, let alone having seen her in the company of someone else.

  Sara knew from experience (or was it from the movies?) if you aren’t getting the right answer, perhaps you’re asking the wrong question. The evidence showed Missy had eaten the Bacon Double Cheeseburger; from the autopsy, this much was conclusive, but not where she had eaten it. The meal could have been purchased, brought to her, and consumed by Missy elsewhere, off site of the fast food outlet. Missy hadn’t been observed at the McDonalds that afternoon, Sara hypothesized, because maybe Missy had not been there. So far as Sara knew, no one had bothered to ask about Jordy Bitson: certainly not her.

  The Big Top Diner was still serving when Sara reached the center of town, the kitchen not yet closed though the restaurant was empty. Sara entered, seating herself alone at one of only a few clean tables. Others were dirty, littered with cups, glasses, and soiled cutlery and dinner plates. Sara recognized the remnants of meatloaf in a pool of congealed brown gravy, a slice of blueberry pie only partially consumed, filthy ashtrays, bread-rolls half-eaten, and pats of butter separating into oil. Nevertheless, the lone waitress sat at a corner table reading a copy of the Sentinel-Tribune, drinking coffee, puffing greedily on a cigarette, allowing her eyes to wander occasionally to the coverage on Fox News.

  Resentfully, she made her way toward Sara, menu in one clenched fist, a glass of ice water in the other. Oh boy, thought Sara, is she happy to see me. On the bright side, she would escape without having to leave a large tip, if she left one at all.

  “Kitchen still open?” Sara asked.

  The waitress placed the menu and the ice water on the table in front of Sara. She looked over her shoulder to a glowering dark man wearing a white, soiled apron and standing behind a stainless steel serving rack, above which was suspended a row of heat-lamps.

  “Everything but the liver,” he said, his eyes fixed to the television screen. “And any steak, well-done. Don’t do breakfast after dinner, either,” he added petulantly, almost as an afterthought. His accent was heavy, possibly East Indian. Sara was tempted to solicit an opinion on the ongoing hostilities in the Middle East, deciding quickly that whatever his thoughts on geopolitics, his attitude, at this moment, would be influenced more by the nuisance of Sara’s late arrival rather than the prospect of Americans bombing Iraq.

  Instead, without looking at the menu, Sara said, “I’ll make it easy; Cob Salad and a decaf coffee. If it’s fresh brewed.”

  “You were expecting what? Instant?” the waitress quipped before walking away.

  The Big Top Diner was a Church Falls institution, still operating after almost fifty years in business. Once family owned, it had changed hands a dozen times in the past decade, passing from one buyer to the next in a succession of operators with little or no experience of the business, but possessing the minimum required cash down payment needed to prompt the establishment to change hands. Its trade was mainly local, the tourists and visitors who in summer passed through the village in droves preferring to take their meals in the finer restaurants located north of the river. But the food was agreeable and agreeably priced, even if the service was not, and to Sara preferable to returning home and the inconvenience at this late hour of preparing a meal for one.

  Earlier, she had stopped by her apartment to leave food out for Bollocks, the tri-colored Calico whose flatter than typical face made it appear as if he had chased after one too many parked cars. The cat was fat, inactive with age, shedding fur in clumps and was a disinterested companion; failing an unexpected catastrophe, Sara would not be missed.

  Seated away from the window, preferring to remain anonymous from the thinning pedestrian traffic now passing along the sidewalk, Sara collected her thoughts, though if she were honest she would admit to herself that her thoughts veered in only one direction; Jordy Bitson. How could they not? There was something unnatural about the relationship he shared with his cousin. Jenny had done more than hint at it and if pressed, Sara believed Mandy would spill too. Sara hated to say it, and wouldn’t aloud, but Bitson was a little scumbag—Christopher’s word for him, not hers—who she, Burke and Dojcsak all believed responsible for the vandalism and who they suspected was pushing drugs at the local high school as proxy to the native American Ire Bomberry, who himself had more than once been charged but never convicted of trafficking in a controlled substance.

  In Burke’s first year on the force, before Sara’s arrival, Chris had been made responsible for making a connection between the two, but the investigation had gone no where and was soon dropped. “Slippery little cock-sucker is hard to pin down,” Burke had said at the time.

  Pulling her mobile from her hip, Sara decided to phone him. It was Sheila who answered.

  “He’s not here,” she said. “What makes you think he would be, at home with his pregnant wife?” emphasis on pregnant, and on wife.

  “My mistake,” Sara said, hoping to disconnect before Sheila gained momentum. She knew from Dojcsak’s wife Rena, the depth of her asperity toward her spouse.

  “No, Sara, my mistake, for having married him in the first place.”

  “I’d rather not do this, Sheila. If you have problems, you should take it up with Chris.”

  “Oh, right,” Sheila replied, “his failings as a husband are my problem, his failings as a cop yours. As if the two aren’t related.” Sheila hung up before Sara could respond.

  Next, she tried Burke’s cellular. “Where are you?” she asked.

  “I’m out,” he said after a moment. “On my way to the Fox ‘n Fiddle.”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  Another brief pause then, “You can’t.”

  “I can’t?”

  “Darts night,” he explained. “Why are you calling me? Has something happened?”

  “No, I wanted to talk. About the case.” Sara pulled the phone from her ear. When she returned it she asked, “What is that sound? It’s as if you’re underwater.”

  Again, another brief pause before Burke answered. “Must be the reception. You know how it is around here.”

  Sara had no way to know that while seated in the rear of his police vehicle—which at the moment was parked on an unlit service road up river from the Church Falls dam—Burke was pressing his mobile to his ear with one hand, and pressing the face of a senior high-school stu
dent (who was not Renate St Jacobs) between his parted thighs with the other. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

  “I was hoping to talk to Jordy Bitson now. Tonight. You know, shake him down?”

  “Bitson?” Burke said, attentive now, shifting so the skin of his bare bottom made a noise against the vinyl bench seat.

  “Hey,” said the girl between his legs. “Did you just fart?”

  Burke gave her a smack on the crown of the head. He covered the mouthpiece of his cell. He whispered, “Shut up will you? This is important.” Into the phone, he said, “Tough talk, Sara, but don’t do anything stupid; that kid is a scumbag. He could be dangerous.”

  “Who is it,” the girl now said, smiling, “your wife?” Burke took a fistful of hair and yanked her head in an aggressive gesture that made it clear he was not amused. Quickly, the smile disappeared from her face. Burke forced her down on himself with renewed vigor.

  “I’m a big girl, Chris. I can handle myself.”

  Thinking quickly, Burke replied, “Dojcsak will have your balls—if you had any—if you blow this. Sit tight. I’ll speak to you tomorrow. Okay?”

  “He was diddling his cousin, Chris.”

  Burke said, “Everyone is diddling someone, Sara.”

  “It stands that he had reason to kill her.”

  “Why, because she was sucking him off? More a reason to keep her around, you ask me. Now I have to go. Really.” With that, he terminated the connection.

  “Asshole,” Sara said into dead air.

  She glanced at the waitress. Reaching into her purse for a ten-dollar bill, she flashed it and said, “I’ll take the salad and the coffee to go.” A minute later she was on the sidewalk, strolling along the river to where earlier she had parked her car.

  CHURCH FALLS, SOMETIME IN THE SEVENTIES

  HARRIET ALOTTA MIGHT have been perceived by men as a whole lotta’ woman, or, if she fancied, a whole lotta’ love. Harriet imagined she could be perceived by a black man as a whole lotta’ soul, just like the song. But by men of either color, Harriet Alotta knew she was perceived as none of these. To most, she was perceived simply as a whole lotta’ extra pounds. Teased mercilessly as a teenager owing to the too good to be true opportunity offered by her size and the unfortunate coincidence of her family name, Harriet learned to hate boys, then later in life equally as much to hate men. By no means was Harriet a lesbian. In fact, when the urge became irresistible—every two to three weeks or so—she trolled the bars downtown in search of partners with whom she could have sex; men who were almost without exception uneducated and overweight. Occasionally, Harriet discovered a man who was able to sincerely appreciate the unique pleasures of a substantial woman. Once convinced he was not simply being cruel, Harriet was happy to oblige.

  After high school, Harriet attended NYSU, staying on after graduation to take a degree in law. Her grades were adequate, if not distinguished. With a financial contribution from her parents, Harriet was able to establish her own small practice in Albany, working mostly “if you cannot afford one, an attorney will be appointed for you” misdemeanor and petty criminal cases. Drew Bitson was her first opportunity to represent a client in a capital crime, though Harriet had been assigned the docket only after the first attorney quit, handing off the case to her by saying, “Might as well throw him to the mob now. They’d lynch him just as soon as they’d listen to him”, referring, Harriet assumed, to a jury.

  Now, no thanks to her, Drew Bitson would go free; prosecutor Jimmy Cromwell had withdrawn the charge of murder in the first degree.

  Referred to increasingly by his superiors and subordinates alike as “fearless leader”—owing to his near comical resemblance to a children’s cartoon character—Harriet suspected James Cromwell to be a fraud. From her perspective, the man was far less courageous than he was cowardly. To Harriet, Jimmy seemed to lack the imagination to prosecute any case that raised the possibility—however remote—of loss. To date, Jimmy’s record was perfect.

  The only outstanding issue to be decided by the three attorneys now seated in Jimmy’s stuffy office on the third floor of the Municipal Courthouse building downtown, was the future of Leland McMaster Junior; whether a case could be made to bring him to trial. Knowing Jimmy’s preference for open and shut, airtight convictions, Harriet doubted it. Unfamiliar with Leland’s attorney, Harriet was unwilling to say if he felt the same, but either way, with Bitson walking it wasn’t now her concern.

  “It isn’t the Sheriff’s responsibility to determine if a charge should or should not be filed,” Heath Montemer said to Jimmy Cromwell now. His native New York City accent flowed thick and sweet over his speech like syrup over flapjacks, thought Harriet.

  She had immediately disliked the man; the lean fatless body wrapped in thousand dollar Fifth Avenue cashmere, just the right amount of necktie showing above the knap of the lapel; the perfect Windsor knot that had remained so even throughout an ordered-in lunch, unmoved by a bobbing Adam’s Apple; and the chunky five hundred dollar Rolex Oyster shackled to his thin wrist, to which Heath Montemer glanced each time Cromwell shifted his attention to Harriet, as if subconsciously estimating his fee.

  Even with the midday warmth of the office, Heath Montemer didn’t sweat. For that matter neither did Jimmy Cromwell. Harriet, on the other hand, dabbed at the beads of perspiration forming along her hairline, shifting self-consciously in her seat as the damp seeped from the small of her back and into her underwear, making them clingy and uncomfortable. During lunch, Harriet had resented the way Montemer had smiled across the table as she ate, as if a healthy appetite on a woman her size was unacceptable.

  Cromwell said, “I agree, it’s the responsibility of the Sheriff to collect evidence, not to assess its potential evidentiary value. Be assured, Heath, that is not happening here.”

  “Sidney Womack is making a lot of noise, Jimmy.” It had taken all of a brief handshake to put them on a first name basis. “It borders on harassment.”

  “I think Womack’s concern might be more with the release of the black boy,” Cromwell said with a nod toward Harriet, eliciting a brief glance from Montemer to his Rolex Oyster, “than a prosecution of young McMaster. Thanks to the fine work of Miss Alotta”—did Cromwell smirk as he said it? —“This is now possible.”

  “My client would be grateful to know,” Montemer said, making it clear he was referring to the gratitude of the senior McMaster, “that the Sheriff will not pursue a specious prosecution of the boy or engage in rumor mongering to publicly promote his cause at the expense of the McMaster family reputation, which as you know, Jimmy, in Church Falls is substantial. What assurance might I take back with me?”

  They were silent, the ceiling fan and the stop and start traffic on the street below the only sound in the room. Montemer was looking from Cromwell for a guarantee that in the presence of Harriet, Jimmy knew he could not offer. She hadn’t graduated summa cum laude, but neither was Harriet Alotta obtuse. Thankful to be free from the vinyl armchair in which for three hours she had felt herself trapped, Harriet pushed away from the small conference table and, conscious of Montemer’s eyes on her hips, left the room.

  After she had gone, Montemer continued. “Jimmy, we require an unconditional guarantee that Leland Junior will not be charged, otherwise my client will be compelled to initiate his own inquiry into the matter.” Any pretense of professional civility now was gone. “I have advised him to apply his own resources, which you know are considerable, to discover the truth of the matter. I have suggested to him the possibility of a civil action should the boy be falsely accused, which I am confident at trial would bring a substantial compensatory and punitive award. The State of New York will be raising taxes well into the twentieth century to cover the cost, Jimmy.”

  “The truth as Mr. McMaster sees it, Heath?” Cromwell said with a weak smile. “The evidence against the boy is compelling.”

  “Really?” said Montemer. He withdrew a gold plate case fr
om a breast pocket of his cashmere sport coat, removing a cigarette without asking permission. He lit the tip with an equally expensive lighter. Montemer raised a hand with all five fingers extended, pale palm open to Cromwell as if to show there was nothing hidden there.

  “One,” he said, curling a manicured finger into his palm, “there is no physical evidence to link my client to the victim; no fiber, no pubic hair and he will not submit to a blood test to confirm a link to the semen. Two,” Montemer continued counting, “Seamus Mcteer will deny ever having taken a photograph of my client under any circumstances, much less the photo you’d be obliged to enter as your most compelling evidence. Three, Seamus will deny ever having seen my client in the presence of Frances Stoops. Four, the mother of the dead girl is prepared to testify that it his her, not the daughter in the photo, and McMaster Senior will state it is he, not his son. He’d sooner admit to adultery than have his first-born tried for a capital crime. And five, are you aware that Seamus, who isn’t talking but if he did, is willing to testify that Ed Dojcsak made a habit of regularly viewing his material weeks before finally disclosing its existence to the police? Your principal witness in this affair is a fraud, Jimmy.”

  Cromwell studied the face of the man opposite; the clear blue eyes, the straight Roman nose, the dark hair pulled back from a high forehead. Heath Montemer really was a very good-looking young man, thought the county prosecutor before abruptly averting his eyes.

  Jimmy assessed his options, counting mentally on his three fingers of his own.

  One, defy Leland McMaster, successfully prosecute his son and leverage the attendant notoriety in a bid to becoming the county’s youngest DA?

  Two, acquiesce to McMaster, let Leland walk, and pressure Womack to arrive at an alternative conclusion, if any conclusion at all. Jimmy would suffer a temporary professional setback, but afterward be free to leverage McMaster’s undoubted gratitude to becoming, if not the youngest, at the very least eventually the County DA?