THE RIGHT TIME TO DIE

by Jason Whitlock

  Mandy turned to her side, curling her body into a fetal position. “I’m tired now, I don’t want to talk anymore. I want you to go.”

  “A few more questions.”

  “No more questions.”

  Moments later, as if the strain of the conversation had become finally unbearable, Mandy was asleep—or feigning it—having dropped off suddenly. In her dreams, the girl now sobbed intermittently, a snuffling sound resembling a tortured snore. Lacking the heart to wake her, Sara released Mandy’s fingers from her hair, pulled a duvet over her sleeping body and closed the light before leaving.

  CHURCH FALLS, SOMETIME IN THE SEVENTIES

  “YOU’RE SURE it’s what you saw?” asked Sidney Womack.

  Ed Dojcsak pointed. “Positive, as sure as you’re sitting there, and I’m sitting here.”

  “Here” was the rear yard at Sidney’s home. The Sheriff faced his second cousin across a hand made (by Sidney) knotty pine picnic table on which lay the scattered remains of a mid-afternoon meal: an outdoors barbecue prepared by Sid’s wife Rebecca. Although her husband had a knack with a hand saw, he was a disaster with a set of tongs, Becky giving Sidney the benefit of the doubt by choosing to believe it was more by chance than by choice.

  Sid’s burger had been served bloody, the way he preferred, Ed’s well done; another among the many differences the Sheriff noted between himself and his next of kin. He had been compelled to extend an offer of future employment to Dojcsak only for his cousin’s potential to incriminate Leland McMaster, rather than—as was assumed—at the insistence of Ed’s mother and Sidney’s aunt Magda twice removed: Sidney felt no particular obligation to the diluted genetic link.

  Watching Dojcsak now, Sidney didn’t care for the way the young man looked at his wife, as if in her short-short denim cut-offs and halter he didn’t approve. But if what Dojcsak was now saying were to be believed, Womack’s initial instinct about Leland Junior might prove, ultimately, to be correct.

  Womack’s children, Catherine and Nathaniel, had been excused from the table earlier, allowed to run wild in the yard with Spot the dog. Spot was a rambunctious terrier without “spots” that had been given the name by Sidney’s daughter, who recently had begun to read. In her pugnacious and enthusiastic manner, Catherine had stated to her parents that in her books, the dog is always Spot. Neither Rebecca nor Sidney considered the indulgence harmful to the child, though they couldn’t say on behalf of the dog whose behavior, at times, suggested that if it could object to Catherine’s blurring of its identity, it would.

  It was six o’clock and by seven, hopefully, Dojcsak would be gone. With luck, the children would fall quickly to sleep after their bath, stay asleep and Sidney and Rebecca would have an opportunity to enjoy what his wife had come to refer to as “quality time”—an unhurried meal or uninterrupted sex—though for Sidney any free time from the children was quality time. He loved the kids, but they sapped his energy and tried his patience, even for the man described by his wife as possessing that of wet paint waiting to dry, especially since he had quit smoking and doubly so since the murder.

  Catherine’s hotdog lay macerated on her plate, like a corpse picked at by a hyena, while Nathaniel had cleared his plate of the mashed potato and bun—minus wiener—he had instead been served. At two-years-old, for Nathaniel the hot dog posed a choking hazard. Though Womack and Becky were not obsessed, they were cautious of the threat.

  With satisfaction, Womack looked out over his yard, extending more than two hundred feet from his rear door in a pie shape that formed a ragged crust bordering the edge of the river. He and Becky had purchased the property prior to being married, pooling their resources for an initial down payment earned from years of summer employment and his position, at the time, as Deputy Sheriff. Becky’s father had co-signed a mortgage loan, which had allowed them to take possession of the land immediately following the marriage, preferring this risk to the possibility the young couple might move in with him and his wife. Honor Jackson was a pensioned, partially disabled Korean War Vet, who with his wife preferred travel to the obligation of maintaining a fixed and permanent address. Eight months of the year they wandered the United States by Winnebago, returning to Church Falls to settle temporarily from November to March, spending Christmas and the New Year with the grandchildren and the kids. Womack didn’t object, enjoying the company of his in-laws and the convenience of in-home, on demand childcare for the three to four months his in-laws stayed with he and Becky.

  The property had been purchased cheap, one of the few remaining on the river permitted to retain its residential dwelling designation. Owing to their presence on a flood plain, most others along this stretch of the Hudson above the dam had been expropriated or denied approval for residential tenancy. In order to build, and at considerable expense in both currency and time, Womack had erected the break-wall that appeared as a “crust” on the outside edge of his pie-shaped lot, and though the County reserved the right to rezone if necessary, it had been five years and they hadn’t done so yet.

  Sidney surveyed the broad expanse of emerald turf, a stand of willow trees that in summer offered shade and in winter protection from the harsh wind across the river, the lilacs in varying stages of bloom, depending on which way they caught the afternoon sun, and the half hearted attempt at a vegetable garden undertaken by his wife. The Sheriff of Warren County decided the risk, and the price, to be worth it.

  “What do you want me to do?” asked Ed Dojcsak casually, staring off into the distance as if hoping to see what Sidney saw. As if it was a touchstone, he fingered the St. Jude Medallion hanging from around his neck, hoping some day to prove it a contradiction.

  Sidney considered carefully before answering. “Why are you coming to me now, Ed?”

  “I don’t know.” Dojcsak averted his eyes. “It’s just that Lee is acting like a creep, you know. I never figured how much until I saw the picture. You know, what he did to that girl.”

  “He fancies himself a ladies man does he?”

  “She wasn’t a lady, Sidney,” Dojcsak said, his voice flat. “She was a girl. It’s why I’m here.”

  “Would it make Seamus suspicious if you purchased the photo? It is for sale, isn’t it?” asked Sidney.

  “I suppose,” Dojcsak said. “I mean, Seamus hasn’t charged me for looking. Yet.”

  “Did you ever express an interest?” said Womack, sipping from a bottle of Budweiser that had become warm from exposure to the sun. He was careful to keep his voice low, so as not to be overheard.

  Dojcsak blushed, his complexion scarlet over his white tee shirt. He reached for his Pepsi, draining the remaining quarter-bottle in one swallow. At eighteen and unlike his cousin, Ed Dojcsak did not drink beer, unable to acquire a taste.

  “I suppose I did,” he replied tentatively. “I don’t know what it would cost.”

  “Don’t worry about that, I’ll cover it. If Seamus has pictures of Leland with the girl, especially in the way you say,” Sidney said, recalling the boy, his father and Jimmy Cromwell together in Albany after Drew Bitson’s arraignment, “it proves he knew her. It proves he was doing something he shouldn’t have been. More than that, it shows he had a possible reason to want her dead.”

  Dojcsak didn’t know about that, but didn’t say so to his cousin. It wouldn’t be difficult for him to return to the home of Seamus Mcteer, to review the grainy black and white photo of Leland McMaster Junior and Frances having sex, though Dojcsak was curiously confused upon seeing it as to why the picture made him angry and not aroused. Envy, he supposed, recalling the image of Leland’s tight, white buttocks captured in a scissor-lock between the thighs of Frances Stoops.

  Womack pressed two twenty-dollar bills across the table into Dojcsak’s hand, careful not to be seen by his wife. “Here. That should be enough to purchase the photo. If it isn’t, let me know. Remember, Ed, I have to be able to recognize who it is, both the boy and the girl.”

  The following day, late in the after
noon, Womack sat across from Jimmy Cromwell in his office at the Albany Municipal Court House, the photo acquired by Dojcsak of Leland McMaster copulating with Frances Stoops placed face-up on the desk between them. Cromwell studied the photograph with detachment. Though he wouldn’t say, to himself Womack admitted to never having seen anything like it.

  “If nothing else,” he said to Cromwell, “it’s grounds to re-open the investigation. To prosecute McMaster for no less than stat rape, or contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

  The County Prosecutor raised his hand, as if to silence him. He continued to study the picture. Just as Womack was about to speak again, he said, “She looks like no minor to me. Besides, Sidney, it isn’t as simple as that. Drew Bitson goes to trial in two weeks. The case is strong. I‘d rather not complicate the prosecution with unsubstantiated hearsay and speculation linking the McMaster boy to the girl, let alone the crime. I’ll see you driving a county snowplow before I let you.”

  Womack thought of Becky, his children, his father-in-law and the personal mortgage guarantee, his pension and his home and said, “How would you like me to handle it, Jimmy?”

  Cromwell thought, and said, “You say the negative is in the possession of Seamus Mcteer, a high school student and resident of Church Falls?”

  As Cromwell took notes, Womack nodded his ascent.

  “First thing is to collect that. Can’t have it floating around.” Cromwell paused to write. “And the boy who purchased the photo? Edward Dojcsak, you say?”

  “Correct,” said Womack.

  “Related to you somehow isn’t he, Sid?” Cromwell observed Womack over the rim of his dark glasses. His head remained low as he scratched a yellow paper pad without looking at it. The tips of his moustache were trimmed off his lip, as if he were wary at the prospect of having them become soiled with food while eating. A fringe of black hair circled his prematurely balding head, and, though at only five-foot-four he was a shorter than average man, Jimmy Cromwell would never be purposely mistaken by those who knew him as being a little one.

  Womack agreed, adding, “He’s close to the boy, Jimmy. He’s been a big help. For a while, it was impossible for me to get straight answers.”

  “Impossible, eh? You say he’s close to the boys?” Cromwell asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “To Leland McMaster?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “For how long?”

  Womack wasn’t certain, but said anyway, “Years.”

  Cromwell turned his leather desk chair on its swivel so that he faced outside. The office overlooked a small parkette. With the window open, the sound of midday traffic drifted in from the street. Despite the warm temperature, Cromwell hadn’t removed his dark suit jacket or loosened his necktie; he did not seem to perspire.

  “Let me understand, Sidney. In your estimation, the Dojcsak boy and Leland McMaster are close, have been for years, and from this relationship the boy gathered evidence you believe implicates McMaster in the killing of Frances Stoops.”

  Womack hesitated only a moment before answering, “Yes, sir, I believe so, yes.”

  “When had he first become aware of the photo?” Crowell wanted to know.

  “I can’t say for certain,” said Womack. “I didn’t ask.”

  “Presumably, before he mentioned it to you?”

  “I suppose,” agreed Sidney. “It’s why he came to me.”

  Cromwell kicked with his feet off the windowsill, spinning freely to face Womack. He spoke while writing, not raising his head, or looking over his glasses at the Sheriff.

  “So, your informant is close and has been for years to the potential suspect. Also, for an undetermined period he’s been admittedly jerking off with the evidence you consider material in an investigation into the killing of a young girl. Perhaps your cousin is envious, Sidney. Vindictive because he wasn’t screwing her himself.”

  Womack bristled. The veins in his forehead throbbed as the blood flow in his neck struggled to squeeze through his constricted arteries and to reach his brain. He swallowed his reply, appreciating how this must appear to a man whose past record of success attested to a considerable grasp of the law, the courts, and generally and most significantly, to a jury of one’s own peers.

  Minutes later, Womack left the prosecutor’s office with an assurance from Cromwell that he would initiate inquiries. Sidney reciprocated with his own promise that at the risk of precipitating a possible mistrial and at the very least the spread of unsubstantiated and damaging allegations, he would say nothing to anyone regarding the photos or his own suspicions.

  …

  Jimmy Cromwell commandeered his sixty-eight Cadillac (purchased on account in nineteen sixty-nine from McMaster Cadillac Chev-Olds) along the crushed gravel drive of the McMaster property, up from the State road along which in nineteen fifty-six Leland had the foresight to purchase over five hundred acres of farmland, forest and rolling hills. If residential development ever breached the beachhead of the river and moved north, as Cromwell knew one day it must, Jimmy would relocate here, though given the nature of his relationship to the man who even now had become inarguably the wealthiest in Warren County and benefactor to Cromwell’s considerable ambition to one day run for county DA, it might appear too close for comfort.

  The door to the McMaster home was answered promptly on the first ring, before Cromwell could pull his finger from the bell and return it to his side. Helen McMaster stood before him, taller than he and resplendent in royal blue dressing gown and slacks: an embroidered Chinese smock with short, cuffed pants cut from a silky material Cromwell could not identify, but which he knew would feel smooth to the touch. Her bottle blonde hair was piled high on her head, falling in ringlets over her ears. In her fist, Helen had a tumbler with a slice of lemon and clear liquid over ice. She grasped it tightly, as if it were the leash on a dog straining to break her grip. As she passed close by him to shut the door, he detected the faint scent of alcohol on her breath. A spider web of broken capillaries pocked what had once been a complexion the envy of dairy farmers across the northeast, though with her heavy makeup they were not noticeable, unless you were standing close.

  Leland McMaster entered the hallway from stage left, parting the heavy oak doors to his study with a flourish, allowing the sunlight to spill from one room to the next.

  “Look, doll,” he said in a half shout, “it’s Jimmy, it’s Jimmy come to visit,” he repeated, as if without prompting, Helen might not recognize Cromwell for herself. “Pour us a drink, doll,” he commanded in a hackneyed tone reminiscent of some forties film noir. To Cromwell he said, “You’ll join me, won’t you? Just arrived home myself: bloody busy day at the dealership. Sometimes,” he said, guiding Cromwell firmly by the elbow into the study, directing him to a chair, “I wonder to myself: how much money does one man need?”

  Cromwell waited, knowing the question was rhetorical, requiring no answer from him. McMaster moved to a leather sofa opposite, careful to maintain the crease in his slacks as he settled into the chair.

  “The answer is simple really,” he said solemnly, “as much as he has the capacity to earn. There are two things that defy the traditional definition of greed, Jimmy,” he continued, as if waiting for his wife to return, which eventually she did, carrying two single malt whiskey over ice. “A man’s need for women, and his quest for wealth. You can never have too much of either. Cheers!” He raised his glass as Helen prepared to settle by her husband.

  “Be a doll,” McMaster said before she could. “Close the door behind you on the way out.” Helen paused in a half-squat and as if by remote control, straightened. With a benign smile, she walked silently from the room. As instructed, Helen closed the door behind her on the way out.

  Leland was a big man, possibly in his late thirties, perhaps five years either side of forty. Tall, physically fit with a self-confidence vested in good looks, McMaster possessed an easy appeal. To Cromwell, he was, and, despite his affluenc
e, would always be a peddler of used automobiles. Jimmy wouldn’t allow himself to critically underestimate the man, aware that his own prejudice derived more from a sense of intellectual pride than from experience. McMaster influenced with money and intimidation. (Emotional rather than physical, though privately, Jimmy suspected the potential was there.) By contrast, Cromwell used the prospect of favors granted or withheld, secrets revealed or concealed. Until the moment Sid Womack walked into McMaster’s office with the photos of Leland’s rutting son, Cromwell was uncertain which held more leverage.

  After five minutes of innocuous chit-chat, during which the two men discussed the Dodgers, the Yankees and the prospects for the upcoming pennant race; a pending application by Leland’s real estate trust, Cloverdale Properties, to rezone a one hundred acre parcel of property belonging to McMaster from farm land to commercial, for the purpose of constructing what the owner described as the county’s first “enclosed shopping mall”; and, the prospect of Cromwell’s re-election, about which the county prosecutor was feeling confident, Jimmy removed an envelope from his breast suit pocket, passing it across the table to McMaster. Leland opened the package, taking time to review the photo critically, as if assessing the performance of his son.