Death in Dark Places

by Drew Franzen

  Despite questioning Missy’s relatives and friends, and a canvass by officers from the State Police, Dojcsak was unable to show conclusively her exact whereabouts or with whom Missy had spent the afternoon on which she disappeared. Time of death had been definitively established by the Medical Examiner at between two o’clock and six that same afternoon. The victim had last been seen alive at three o’clock, leaving the home of her cousin Kendra. So, three hours for Missy to have met a person or persons unknown, make her way to the local McDonalds, consume (hurriedly, according to the autopsy report) a meal of Bacon Double Cheeseburger with fries and have sex with her companion.

  A busy three hours in which she had also managed to have her neck snapped and to find her way into the trash bin behind her father’s store. The time-line, Dojcsak decided, must account for all the possibilities. Perhaps Sara’s renewed line of questioning—had anyone witnessed Jordy that afternoon at the McDs?—might uncover something useful.

  Neither Drew Bitson nor his wife would—or could—confirm if Jordy Bitson had been present in the house during the victim’s visit with his sister. It was plausible he was. Based on testimony Dojcsak had gathered from Kendra (Missy had not come to see her, Kendra, but Jordy) and from Jenny in her interview with Sara (a suspicion that Missy enjoyed a special relationship with her cousin), Dojcsak assumed the boy had been. Admittedly, not an eyewitness account, but weighed against Jordy’s character, sufficiently circumstantial.

  Forensics revealed that stains discovered on the brick wall within the alley were indeed human blood, but did not belong to the victim. The blood had been sent to Albany for DNA testing, to be compared to the semen found inside the girl. Could they test them against the DNA of Jordy Bitson? Sara was agitating to bring the young man in for questioning.

  “Okay, Sara,” Dojcsak agreed finally. “It’s early, but if it’s what you want.”

  “Not what I want, Ed; what in my professional opinion I think is necessary.”

  Dojcsak rotated his chair ninety-degrees so 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. In autumn, the trees would erupt in a brief cacophony of color, an intermittent outburst of orange, yellow and red in their transition from green to brown; a splash of color brushed with an errant stroke across the sky. Dojcsak was never more content than when roaming these country back roads or secluded lakes, foraging through the backcountry like Grizzly Adams.

  He sat. Returning his attention to the file, Dojcsak carefully reviewed his own notes and those of Deputies Pridmore and Burke. Sara had, of course, typed her observations in page after page of sprawling, fact-based, emotionless commentary; if it came down to it, Dojcsak admitted, the most useful in a court of law. Burke submitted his suppositions in a tight, delicate handwritten scrawl, at odds entirely with his macho exterior. For his part, Dojcsak provided a short-form, bullet point abstract traveling horizontally, vertically and diagonally across the tattered pages of his notebook, a form of pigeon shorthand understandable only to him.

  Dojcsak ignited a cigarette, his twentieth of the day, though the day was not yet half over. Though last evening it was cold and threatening frost, to Dojcsak the morning felt unseasonably warm. He surrendered to the heat by opening a window to his office. He removed his jacket, tugging loose the knot in his necktie. The breeze agitated the cigarette smoke like an incoming tide might do to a small boat, tossing it, turning it, and dispersing it. He noted the time, regretting lunch was an hour away, resigned to sipping black coffee in lieu of beer.

  Delicately, Dojcsak pressed a finger to his cheek. He flinched. “Jesus,” he said aloud. His skin was raw, as if it had been peeled. Recalling Rena’s caution, Dojcsak feared he might yet strike bone, or that he already had.

  Last night he had dreamed, for Dojcsak a rare though not special occurrence. At the time the dream seemed more like a nightmare. Though he had been wakened by it, Dojcsak had woken neither frightened nor disturbed: simply compelled, as if being made privy to the anguish of another man.

  In the dream, Dojcsak—or a man who while sleeping Dojcsak imagined himself to be—was on stage, alone at the Church Falls community theatre performing in a scene from Macbeth.

  In a soliloquy, Dojcsak confessed guilt in the death of his own father to an audience consisting of both his family and the immediate family of the deceased, Missy Bitson: Maggie, Eugene, Mandy, Maggie’s oldest child Evelyn, though he hadn’t seen her for more than a decade, together with Leland Sr. and his wife. They occupied front row seats. Nearer the back were Dojcsak’s friends: past, present, living, deceased, and by virtue of circumstance, age or disease, those soon to be dead. All looked to him as if to say, “Et tu, Brute?”

  The ushers in the theater consisted of dead girls, or rather given the circumstances of the dream, the ghosts of dead girls, Dojcsak imagined. Ghosts, because to him they showed no obvious sign of decay, but no apparent sign of life either. With the stage lights bright against his upturned face and the house lights down, Dojcsak was unable to recognize them. A good thing, he decided.

  The ushers escorted a steady procession of townspeople, both living and dead, to their seats. Though the theater was small, it continued to fill. As if to accommodate the limited seating, the audience seemed to merge, male and female, young and old, melting into an indistinct pool of androgynous agelessness in an effort to become one.

  Dojcsak dressed in a plain white smock. Clearly visible through the thin material was an enormous erection. Dojcsak glanced at it curiously, as if it belonged to someone else, which even in the dream he knew it must, Dojcsak never having been so generously endowed. On stage, Dojcsak delivered his lines through clenched teeth, as if he were in pain, which he was since with every utterance he was for some unknown reason peeling a layer of skin from his face, digging in with his fingernails as if he were removing a mask. Offstage the director, Missy Bitson, encouraged him. She used hand motions to urge him to remove more layers, scraping at her own face in mock sympathy. Dojcsak woke before he reached bare flesh.

  Although certain elements of the dream were unsettling, Dojcsak woke disappointed others were not real. He recalled a film he and Rena had once watched together: The Sixth Sense. I see dead people. It was not so unusual.

  He returned his attention to the files. Sweat dropped from his forehead, smearing the ink on the page. Dojcsak wiped the moisture away with the cuff of his shirt. He moved to light another cigarette, realizing he had one burning in the ashtray beside him. He sipped cold coffee, draining an accompanying glass of tap water in one gulp.

  Beyond his closed door the telephone rang, answered alternately by either Dorothy O’Rielly or Trinity Van Duesen. In the week since the murder, the telephone in the office rang less often. He faced the window, placed his orthopedic shoes on the sill, tried to settle his bulk comfortably in the unforgiving wood chair. Again, he touched his fingertips to his face, overwhelmed suddenly by the possible implications on his daily ritual of the condition of his frayed skin. A breeze kicked up, making its way through his open window, agitating the papers on his desk. Dojcsak shivered. He placed his palm flat down on the Bitson file.

  “Be still, Missy Bitson,” he said, “be still.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  HIS PARENTS HAD not seen Jordy Bitson since yesterday, the day before if you include the last day on which Jordy rushed from the house before dinner to meet with who, precisely, his mother and father couldn’t say.

  Mrs. Bitson said, “And before you ask, we haven’t spoke to the boy neither. When I do, I’ll give him a piece of my mind. When I see him, I’ll give him a piece of this.” She raised an open hand.

  Drew Bitson looked away, embarrassed presumably, for his wife, though living across the street from the family, Dojcsak knew it could be from either intimidation or possibly outright fear.
She was a small woman, but Angela Bitson was wiry, with the whippy frame of a long distance runner and the temper of an agitated yellow jacket. She worked odd shifts at the local laundromat and her volatile disposition had more than once caused her to run afoul of an unsatisfied customer. On summer nights, her high-pitched and angry wail carried over the yard through Dojcsak’s living room bay window.

  He suspected that as a child Jordy carried on his body the scars of his mother’s temper, but with his skin so dark, Dojcsak was unable to tell.

  “Are his friends calling?” Dojcsak wanted to know.

  “Why not ask your girl, Ed?” Angela said. “For the times she calls here looking for that boy, she might as well move in.”

  “Angela, please,” her husband said.

  “Don’t you please me, mister,” she said, turning on him. To Dojcsak she said, “I can understand a black boy wanting a piece of white ass, Ed, it’s to be expected. But what he sees in your child, I’ll never know.”

  “I’ll speak to Jennifer, Mrs. Bitson. I’m sorry to hear she’s been a nuisance.”

  Standing beside Dojcsak, now, Sara winced, dumbfounded that under the circumstances he should feel compelled to apologize on behalf of his daughter.

  Drew Bitson stood back from his wife and off to the side, as if for safety needing to keep her at arms length. He towered over Angela, looking down on her from a height of six and a half feet, but in the presence of his wife, Drew seemed withdrawn, almost contrite. Physically he was a big man, in character much, much smaller.

  Sara recalled the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Drew didn’t have a head like a skull, his skin was not scarred and he didn’t drool; Sara didn’t believe he ate raw squirrels and cats but she couldn’t say for sure if he didn’t scratch at people’s screen doors when they slept, or if he left tracks in their backyards during the night. It took Sara a moment to realize in the novel, the description had applied to the white boy, Boo Radley, played in the film, she recalled, by a young Robert Duvall. She excused her mistake now by thinking how aptly the description applied to Drew. Drew hadn’t killed his niece, but the evidence obtained years ago in the killing of Frances Stoops was inconclusive. Like Cassie said: he may not have been convicted, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t kill her.

  Was it possible for him to have passed on this compulsion to his son? (I’m reaching, Sara thought. Might as well enlist the services of the psychic Angelique to make my case against the boy.)

  “Would it be possible for us to have a look at Jordy’s room?” Dojcsak asked.

  “Without a warrant?”

  “It would be easier without one,” Dojcsak replied. “In the end, it won’t alter the outcome.”

  “Be my guest,” Angela said without considering it further, pointing to the stairs. “Second room on the right.”

  As they proceeded to the second floor, they overheard Angela Bitson say to her husband, “Don’t you dare, Drew, don’t you dare look at me that way.” Silence then, “You want some of this, too?”

  Dojcsak imagined her raising a clenched black fist, bearing down on her husband.

  Sara said, “The woman is a tyrant.”

  “It explains the boy,” said Dojcsak.

  Sara was doubtful. “Misplaced aggression?”

  “Or worse,” Dojcsak conjectured.

  Jordy’s room was only marginally filthier than that of any other teenager might be, Dojcsak suspected. On the walls were posters: names such as Tupac Shakur, Run-DMC, Absolute Zero, Exhumination and Regurgitator, hellish images of violence, mayhem and gore. Like Jordy, the principals were covered with tattoos; like his daughter, earrings and metal studs in unimaginable places. So this, Dojcsak decided, is what the two have in common.

  Sara studied the wall art dispassionately. “The kid is fucked up, for sure,” she stated conclusively.

  The room appeared as if Jordy had departed in the morning, expecting to be home later in the day. It did not have the look of flight, but rather hurried departure. The bed was unmade, clothes scattered over the floor in small bundles: boxer underwear; athletic socks turning in color from white to yellow; blue jeans; tee shirts, and, for warmer weather, shorts.

  An overflowing ashtray sat on a low bedside table on which a lamp burned. Three Styrofoam take-out cups left a residue of dark circles on the veneer. One cup was half full with cold coffee, the cream curdled, a cigarette butt floating on the greasy surface. Compact disks and magazines were piled haphazardly in a corner, as if their owner had stolen them or received them at no cost, their care reflecting his perceived value.

  From Jordy’s bedroom window, Dojcsak looked across the street to his own home, to Jennifer’s second floor bedroom window. Had the two traded messages across the way, he wondered, using flashlights late at night to communicate in some rudimentary code known only to each other? Dojcsak suspected but couldn’t be sure, convinced that on more than one occasion in the past months he had overheard Jenny sneaking from the home late at night. While his mind, at these times, cried out to challenge her, his will was dispirited and unsure.

  “Wouldn’t exactly qualify for the Good Housekeeping Seal of approval,” Sara muttered distastefully.

  Dojcsak poked at the bundles of scattered clothing with the toe of his heavy leather shoe, as if they might bite. He pulled a week worth of dirty laundry from under the bed: a tee shirt stained with what looked to be dried blood, but otherwise nothing useful. Sara moved to the closet, giving a low whistle as she opened the door.

  “Jesus,” she said. “What a pigsty.” She extracted a set of latex gloves from a rear pocket of her trousers and snapped them over her fingers. She offered a second pair to Dojcsak.

  Between the mattress and the box spring of the bed, Dojcsak discovered an assortment of sex magazines, homo and heterosexual, each with specific photos earmarked by a dog-eared corner of the page. He studied the image of a nude, black male model masturbating while seated on the edge of a toilet. Like Jordy, he was young and tattooed. He passed the magazine to Sara.

  She studied the picture. “My God; I’m impressed.”

  Dojcsak moved to the bedside table. Again, nothing useful; a paper back novel, a half empty package of cigarettes, two unopened packages of condoms, a tin of breath mints.

  The high chest of drawers was next. Without having to search, Dojcsak discovered a leather pouch containing a significant quantity of marijuana.

  Dojcsak turned to Sara. “He’s dealing, Sara. Too much here for him to smoke himself.”

  “It confirms what Cassie McMaster suspected,” she agreed.

  “Was Missy using?” he asked.

  “If she was, someone would have said. If they had, I would have told you.”

  Sara continued to rummage while Dojcsak moved meticulously through the remaining three dresser drawers. More CDs, more magazines—though none pornographic—socks, underwear, blue jeans and tee shirts. A healthy, if depleted, supply of condoms, cigarette packages, some empty, some half-empty, some full, flakes of loose tobacco littering the bottom of each drawer. Inexpensive aftershave of a kind available at Walgreens, deodorant stick and, in the final drawer, travel brochures to such destinations as New York City, San Francesco, Chicago and New Orleans. Dojcsak showed these to Sara.

  “He’s going to do a runner, Ed.”

  “Do you think?”

  “Sure. He’s going to do a runner. We should call it in, issue a BOLO.”

  “Early yet, Sara, to involve the State Police. What would be the charge?”

  Sara returned her attention to the closet. After a moment, she said, “I may have something here, Ed.”

  From beneath what could only be described as a heap of accumulated odds and ends—strap on leg weights, dumbbells, miscellaneous bicycle and skateboard parts, still more compact discs and empty jewel cases, discarded posters of fallen rap and rock demi-gods, more clothing, ball caps, high-school text books, bungee chords, a roll of duct tape, and months of accumu
lated dust—Sara extracted a large card board box, folded in at the flaps.

  Dojcsak did not kneel but moved to stand beside Sara as she opened the container.

  Inside was a laptop computer, envelopes, more drugs and cash, lots of it. Sara counted: forty-two hundred dollars in mostly large bills, twenties, fifties and two-dozen one hundreds.

  “Our Jordy is a very resourceful young man, Ed. Look at this. More than I make in a month.”

  Me too, thought Dojcsak. Not really, but close.

  “What’s in the envelopes?” he asked.

  Sara opened the flap. Photographs, a dozen to twenty snapshots in the first envelope, four envelops in all. Color photos showing Jordy Bitson engaged in sex with his cousin Missy, in ways Sara could not have imagined possible. Jordy alone and masturbating, Missy alone and masturbating, looking younger in each photograph than even her thirteen years would imply. In some of the photos, her pubis was shorn to the skin and her breasts bound tightly in a halter-like training bra, to disguise, Sara suspected, her true age. In others, Missy appeared bound and gagged—explaining the duct tape and bungee chords—blindfolded and hanging suspended from her wrists from an overhead metal bar. In some, Missy was dressed in a schoolgirl kilt and knee-high socks, reminiscent of the MTV video Sara had recently seen.

  Image after image poured from the envelope like frames in a dirty picture reel. Sara became nauseous, fearing she might throw up. Her vision blurred. From anger or embarrassment, she wasn’t sure. Whatever Sara had expected, it was not this. This was not a modern day incarnation of her childhood version of Tickle Me. This was not an example of pubescent promiscuity run amok, but something much more depraved and, God help them, insidious. Nothing amateur about the material and while crude, to Sara they were not crude.

  The article in the Times, her conversation with Joe Doeung, elements of her own upbringing came back upon her like acid reflux, bile rising to her throat. Sara cringed, as if her skin had shrunk two sizes.