“Stay up half the night if you want,” Leland said to no one in particular, rising from his chair. “I’m going to sleep.” He grasped the bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand, and before walking from the room turned to Maggie and said, “If he comes for me, I won’t go. If he comes for me, I’ll tell him the same as I told you. A man has his appetites and a man makes mistakes. I’ve done nothing a thousand men haven’t done before me, and a thousand more won’t do after.”
With those parting words, Leland McMaster made his way up the stairs and to bed.
…
By the time Dojcsak arrived, the home was fully engulfed. The firefighters had removed the remains, which now lay on the gravel in the front drive, covered with plastic tarp. All that was left was to contain the blaze and to prevent the rising breeze from carrying the flame toward the barn, where more than one dozen horses, sensing the danger, snorted and kicked, stamping their hooves and ramming their heavy flanks into the paddock until the splinters pierced their hide. The Fire Chief was watchful, prepared to release the animals to the fields the moment it appeared the fire might spread. Given their frenzy, he wondered if it might be best to do it now.
“It’s as if the blaze began in two places, simultaneously,” he was telling Dojcsak. “In the living room, downstairs, and at the same time in a second floor bedroom. We arrived quickly,” he said as if excusing himself, “but the house is old, wood frame.” He shrugged. “There was little we could do.”
“Careless smoking?” Dojcsak ventured.
“I’m not a forensic analyst,” the Fire Chief replied, “but I’m guessing an accelerant was involved. The burn pattern is pronounced where we found the bodies. It appears to have been deliberately set, as if the bodies themselves may have been doused.”
“Homicide?” asked Dojcsak.
“Homicide, suicide, both? That’s for you and the coroner to decide, Sheriff,” the Fire Chief said. He then excused himself to monitor the blaze.
Despite the fumes and the acrid taste of charred shingle and wood coating the interior of his mouth and his throat, Dojcsak smoked. He watched as the home of Leland McMaster collapsed in on itself, feeling the heat against his face as if it were the old man’s temper. The timbers squawked and sizzled, straining hopelessly to remain upright in what Dojcsak imagined was a last act of defiance, an extended middle finger to a world to which Leland believed he owed nothing, and to which he made no amends. Tomorrow, after the fire died and the embers cooled, there would be only ash, as lifeless and blackened as the scorched remains of Leland McMaster himself.
Dojcsak extracted his cellular telephone, making a call each to Pridmore and to Burke. He instructed both to meet him at the home of Eugene Bitson and offered Sara the opportunity to contact Cassie McMaster, firstly to inform her that her parents had died, and secondly to advise—in Dojcsak’s opinion—that her sister, Maggie, was responsible.
“We should have picked him up yesterday, Ed,” Sara said.
“He wasn’t going anywhere,” Dojcsak replied.
“You said the same about Jordy,” said Sara.
“Well, Leland hasn’t gone anywhere,” said Dojcsak testily, regarding the covered remains of Leland McMaster. “He’s right here in front of me, not fifteen feet away.”
Five minutes later Dojcsak was on the road, the orange glow from the still smoldering flames illuminating the night sky in his rear view mirror. He ran a finger over his chin, (the heat had irritated his skin) and decided he had time to return home to shave. Before turning off, Dojcsak decided against it, knowing in the morning he would sleep late and aside from endless reports, it would be a quiet day, affording him the luxury to shave as often as he liked.
So much for people are, people do, he mused, wondering at the range of complicated emotion that had inspired Maggie Bitson. On the radio, Elvis concluded the last track in what the disc jockey announced as a midnight triple play. Elvis Presley, Ick, he asked himself? Not on your bloody life.
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
THE AFTERNOON HAD been warm and clear, for the Oasis a busy end of the school-term Saturday. The patio was jammed with young people drinking frozen margaritas and beer by the frosty pitcher-full. It had taken Pridmore and Dojcsak five minutes to work their way through the noisy and excited crowd before reaching the river to visually confirm what, until then, had been only rumored. It brought to mind for Sara images of an outdoor rock concert, a mosh pit with everyone surging forward to get a better look.
That day, the drinking continued early into the following morning with many patrons scanning the water’s surface and pointing: long after Jordy had been retrieved, but as if the body were still there. He had been discovered floating face up in the Hudson River with his body snagged on the rocky outcroppings at the base of the Oasis patio. Jordy was bloated and battered from his weeks in the river, his face stove in from what Medical Examiner Abby Friedman described later as repeated blows from a blunt instrument, or possibly a fist but not, definitely, from his time in the river. The beating was per-mortem, occurring before the boy entered the water.
It would be another six weeks before Seamus Mcteer would eventually be indicted in his murder. District Attorney Jimmy Cromwell argued—only partly accurately—that Jordy was a victim of blackmail gone wrong. Though Seamus denied the accusation, the small basement studio with stained, foam filled mattress, the dark room, the sophisticated collection of video and photographic equipment, the thousands of dollars in cash and the recovery of hundreds of additional photographs and digital files—most featuring Jordy—stashed beneath a false bottom built into the hearth of his fireplace floor, was sufficient to convince a Grand Jury Mcteer was guilty of something.
Joel Pataki worried for months afterward over the nature of his relationship with Jordy becoming public. It never did. Pataki lost weight, developed an ulcer and suffered from erectile dysfunction in the year following Jordy’s death, never once regretting or begrudging his various and sundry ailments.
Marie Radigan had not seen her father since the morning he waved a toodle-oo goodbye to her at the studio, the same day he met with Seamus Mcteer at a rest stop to the on-ramp to the I-87. As the home she shared with Jeremy carried no mortgage and with her modest income from the studio sufficient to meet her monthly requirements, Marie reported her father neither missing nor missed. Eventually, the police questioned Marie, though she offered nothing in the way of meaningful information; she had none to give. In this, Marie was grateful for some aspects of her father’s secretive behavior.
Neighbors commented that after Jeremy’s departure (disappearance?), Marie left the house more often, doing so with a more vigorous and confident step. She began to apply face make-up and grow out her hair so by midsummer it reached to her shoulders. Strangely, Marie began to look all of her thirty years. Though some would find this distressing in an age fixated on glamour and perpetual youth, for the daughter of Sophie and Roots Radigan it was a singular and necessary relief.
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
THE FOLLOWING OCTOBER, Luba Dojcsak died. One moment, Luba’s disabled lungs labored unsuccessfully to achieve what in most is taken for granted; the next they did not. Doctor Henry Bauer was satisfied, though not pleased, to have been proved correct in at least one of the many best estimates he had made on when Luba Dojcsak might finally die, having advised her mother earlier that morning: “Any day now Rena, any moment perhaps”.
Rena Dojcsak was obliged to purchase a gown in which to bury her daughter. Never before having had the need, Luba’s wardrobe was limited. Visitation was at the funeral home of Shuttleworth and Brown. Luba wore her new dress, Dojcsak his best suit, Rena a black skirt with navy top.
Jenny, though she failed to attend visitation on the first evening, arrived on the next composed and attired appropriately in black slacks and a neat, three-quarter length black leather jacket—no patches, no pins. She had removed the earrings from her eyebrow, her lower lip and the nostril, though not from her ears. She had br
ushed out her hair into a stylish bob. While many thought it an expression of respect for her parents, it was in fact on behalf of her sister that Jenny did so. In those few lucid moments when Luba was capable, she teased her sister good-naturedly over her rugged appearance.
On the day of the funeral, dawn arrived like a schizophrenic tug-of-war between the seasons, a confused mix of winter and fall. Alternately, the air was warm and then cold, overcast and then bright, breezy and then calm. It was an autumn day on which the sun and the wind disappear and reappear in turn, making it difficult to know how to comfortably dress. If Ed Dojcsak had been hoping for a portent in the weather to mark the passing of his daughter, he found none that day.
Afterward, there was coffee and sweets at a small reception hosted in the Dojcsak family home. Fifty mourners crowded the small living room and front entrance hall, spilling into the kitchen. Christopher Burke was not among them. He had returned with his wife and his newborn baby daughter to Syracuse, to live temporarily with his in-laws. Burke had been offered, and accepted, a position with the New York State Police as a Traffic Investigator, probing the cause of vehicular mayhem on and about a fifty-mile stretch of Interstate Ninety Five running between Syracuse and Utica, New York.
“It’s a better opportunity than I have here, Ed,” he said to Dojcsak on the day he announced he would be leaving. “It could be thirty years before this town see’s another homicide,” Burke said in explaining his decision.
Dojcsak did not disagree. With Seamus Mcteer likely to be sentenced to twenty-five to life, Jeremy Radigan gone, both Leland McMaster and Jordy Bitson dead and Maggie committed to the State Mental Facility in Albany, the population of reasonable murder suspects residing within the community—or those apt to commit one—had been drastically reduced. What remained was hardly sufficient to satisfy the ambition of Christopher Burke.
“Jennifer looks good,” Sara said to Dojcsak now. She had approached from the bathroom, from behind, without his knowing. Dojcsak sat by himself on the stairs of a second floor landing, smoking and sipping the last of a warm beer.
“She does,” he replied. “I won’t get my hopes up though. Looks can be deceiving.”
“Isn’t it about time you gave her the benefit of the doubt, Ed?”
“You’re young, Sara, you have the luxury of time.”
Sara sat beside him, the stairs just able to accommodate the two side-by-side together. She had not divulged to Ed the issue of Missy’s telephone call to the Dojcsak home; thankfully, neither had Burke. Sara said, “Tell me, Ed, are you satisfied with the outcome?”
“It would be better if she hadn’t died so young, but yes, given the state of her health I suppose you could say it’s for the best.”
“I’m not referring to Luba. I’m talking about the Bitson investigation.”
Dojcsak shrugged. “Leave it be, Sara. Justice has been done; more importantly, justice is seen to have been done. Smarter people than us have seen to that.”
“Do we know for certain who killed Missy? It’s all so circumstantial.”
Dojcsak deposited his cigarette butt into his empty beer bottle, immediately igniting another.
“Jordy is dead,” he replied, as if this were as satisfactory a conclusion as any. “Seamus will go to prison for a long and, I imagine, a very difficult time. He may have had something to do with Jeremy Radigan’s disappearance; he may not have. Either way, it’s no great loss to the community. As for Maggie, she’s where she belongs—has belonged—for some time,” Dojcsak reasoned.
“And Leland McMaster?” asked Sara.
“Don’t expect me to shed any tears. You’ve seen the photographs: his granddaughter, and only thirteen. This saves us the cost of a trial, Sara. He got what he deserved, probably his wife too.”
“Do they ever?”
“What?”
“Get what they deserve, the Leland McMasters of the world.”
“They do a lot of damage in the meantime, but ultimately, yes, I suppose they do. It’s a question of guilt, isn’t it, that certain justice that comes with living with the guilt?”
“You sound as if you speak from experience, Ed.”
“Look at my life, Sara,” he said with a nod, indicating the many who had come to pay Luba their last respects. “There’s more than one way to wreck a family.”
“Recognizing a problem may be the first step.”
“Knowing it and doing something about it are two different things. And you?” Dojcsak asked now. “What are your plans?”
Sara considered her response.
“I’ve been accepted to begin training with the State Police,” she said.
“I know,” Dojcsak replied. “Congratulations.”
She was unable to know if he was pleased. She said, “It’s gratifying to know they want me, to know I qualify. It may be fine for Christopher, but me? I don’t see myself scraping human road-kill up off the Interstate as a particularly rewarding career opportunity.”
“You’re satisfied they asked, but you’ll stay,” said Dojcsak.
“I’m satisfied, and I’ll stay,” Sara agreed, even though, coming from Dojcsak, it had not been a question.
“How long?” he asked.
Sara shrugged. “Until something better comes along, I suppose.”
Dojcsak drew a lung full of smoke. “Well, you may not have long to wait.” He raised his beer bottle to his lips and realizing it was empty said, “I need another,” before leaving Sara alone, sitting on the step, to make sense of his reaction.
CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
CONSCIOUSLY UNAWARE of doing so, Ed Dojcsak quoted Yogi Bera: “It’s like déjà vu all over again”. The phrase repeated over and over and over in his head.
It was after midnight. It was Sara on the telephone informing him the child was no longer missing but dead; on lifting the receiver, Ed Dojcsak knew as much.
Again Dojcsak lamented the weather. Again he regretted his decision to delay filling a renewed—though now much dated—eyeglass prescription. It was a short drive to the body, but tonight it was snow—blowing and drifting—and not fog that would conspire with his neglect to obliterate the florescent yellow markings on the roadway and upcoming curves he would encounter on his way there.
Before leaving the bedroom that evening, Dojcsak did not throw a glance over the shoulder at his wife sleeping beside him. Rena had left, taking Jennifer with her, shortly after the death of Luba. Dojcsak reached for the St. Jude Medallion dangling at his chest; finding it missing, he pulled only hair. He wondered briefly where he’d misplaced it.
In the bathroom, Dojcsak shaved carelessly, brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth and didn’t bother to comb his hair.
Pridmore was waiting by her vehicle when he arrived at the crime scene, off to one side of the road, roof lights and four-way emergency signals flashing a losing battle against the driving snow. She pointed, mumbling something made unintelligible by the wind. She began walking toward the river, motioning for him to follow.
The snow traveled across the surface of the water in a horizontal gust, pricking at the surface of his skin like shrapnel as Dojcsak crossed the open field in Pridmore’s footsteps. On her head, Sara wore a Cossack-style fur cap with the side flaps drawn tightly down over her ears and cheeks, the front flap pinned up over her forehead with her police badge showing. In her left hand, she carried an oversize police-issue flashlight. With each step, Sara’s legs burrowed in the snow to mid-shin, for her making the journey to the river from the road a modest struggle. For Dojcsak, it was a monumental task. His heart pounded. Beneath his coat and hat he perspired heavily. He’d dropped almost forty pounds since spring, become stooped, and his head of thick sandy brown turning silver hair had begun to thin noticeably.
The body was protected from the worst of the elements by a makeshift poly-vinyl barrier erected by the State Police, who earlier had arrived on the scene. Dojcsak recognized the yellow cover as the kind used to conceal from curious onlookers the remains
of traffic fatalities, when bodies are not easily or immediately extracted from a twisted and tangled wreck. The Troopers had yet to erect an enclosure or the halogen arc lamps that would illuminate the scene. The body was obscured by darkness and swirling snow.
Forced to compete with the wind, Dojcsak yelled. “Is it her?”
Sara simply nodded, as if her tongue had frozen to the roof of her mouth. The missing child, now victim, was reported as such when she failed to return home the previous evening, from a skating party organized by her school. Breanne Tauser was slight of build, though tall for her age. Thirteen years old going on fourteen, she was scheduled to attend the local high school in September of the following year. No one suggested she was promiscuous, but as he had in the case of Missy Bitson, Dojcsak suspected.
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