Victim

by Gary Kinder

  The funeral was just unbearable almost… . It was just hard saying your final good-byes. I remember getting real angry all over again and having a hard time coping with all that. I was almost beside myself with hate. You just felt such an emptiness, even though you could hardly bring yourself to believe it had actually happened. It was such a waste. Anyhow, they opened the casket for the family and she looked pretty good.

  They all went through a coroner autopsy, and that upset me a little that she had to go through such a thorough one. They hacked ‘em all up, and that was kind of bad. You could see the seams across the front of her head where they’d, you know, taken her skull out, and taken her brain. I guess they put them back, but it’s just hard to make it look like she really was. But for what she’d been through, I think she looked good.

  Byron sat in one of the pews at the edge of the aisle, and as each of his children came in, he would put his arm around them one at a time and start by telling them that everything was all right. Claire followed Brett and Diane, and Gary was the last of the three to walk up the aisle to the front of the chapel where his mother lay.

  That whole day was really something else. Dad handled it really, really neat. As typical Dad, he went down a couple hours beforehand, checked the casket, made sure it was acceptable, decided that she looked natural enough under the circumstances to have it open, took care of whatever thoughts and feelings he had at the time, and that was that. Then we the children showed up, and he took each of us up to Mother’s casket, and I’m sure he said different things to each of us. He told us that he loved us and that Mother had loved us. He explained his love for Mother, his thoughts on her last minutes and on death. There is a life after death, she is dead, it’s past, it’s nothing that we’re supposed to sit and ruminate about. She lived a good full life, she wanted to be a mother and she fulfilled her function very well. You know? I mean she felt fulfilled, she felt proud of her children. She would probably have liked to have stayed around a little longer, so she would be remorseful for that reason, but what she had set out to do she had accomplished and led a full life. She had been a good woman and had helped get them through medical school. Then she had dedicated herself to raising her children. He said not to grieve, that Mother had done her job here, she may not have had complete fulfillment of her job, but she was fine “on the other side” so to speak, that we as a family would be united again when we all die, and that this is a passing, you know, it’s just something that happens, just to accept it and go on. Then he went on to say that according to the medical examiner’s report she had probably died instantly in the conscious sense. He was very calm, not necessarily measured as though he was trying to contain any rage, no rage at all, very calm and sullen, melancholy, you know, in part; but here again, he had already taken care of his emotions, he was trying to help each of us.

  When the actual public viewing came about, there was no viewing at all, it was more a reception, you know, as the people came by, and like I said it was almost.. . Dad was the stalwart. Everything was going to be okay. He had calmed the family and instilled his love in us so much that we were very well taken care of with ourselves and our own feelings, and we were in turn trying to convey our peace of mind to the other people who were coming to show their commiserations to us. “Hello, how are you? Yes, it was tragic. Don’t worry about us, everything’s okay. We’re doing fine.” We were consoling the other people, it wasn’t the other way around. Without Dad we couldn’t have done that. Maybe we could have, but not to that extent. It was very well done. I was very proud of him.

  After Gary had had some time alone with his mother, he brought his camera into the chapel and took pictures of her in her casket, surrounded by flowers. At first the idea of taking the pictures hadn’t seemed right to him. Then he thought that if Cortney lived, and if he ever regained consciousness, he might want these last pictures of his mother. But after taking the pictures, Gary held on to the roll of film for a long time, until finally there seemed to be no reason to have the pictures developed.

  Although the family had requested that donations in Carol’s name be sent to the McKay-Dee Foundation or the St. Benedict’s Building Fund, over a hundred floral arrangements—pink and white carnations; red, yellow, and orange gladioli; lavender chrysanthemums; daisies; blue irises; large yellow spider mums—filled the room that Friday evening where Byron, Gary, Brett, and Claire stood in a line next to the now closed mahogany casket. The crowds that came to view Carol grew so quickly that the chapel filled, and soon, as people entered the mortuary, instead of standing in line they were seated in the next available pew, where they waited to be called forward one row at a time. Many of them waited an hour and a half to be allowed a few moments to express their sympathy to the Naisbitt family. When the Register of Friends and Family was finally closed, it bore the names of nearly thirteen hundred people.

  As each of the mourners passed by the closed casket to speak quietly for a moment with the family—“Such an unnecessary loss,” many of them said—the family reassured them that they were holding up fine, that a lot of their grief perhaps had been transferred to hope for Cortney. Their thoughts and feelings, their energies, now were being directed toward him. Claire was standing next to her father as the people passed slowly by, grasping her hand, kissing her cheek, many of them crying. The people and the words blurred in her mind. As she was standing there, something her father had said while they were making arrangements for the funeral came back to her.

  “I hope we’re not doing this again next week.”

  Friday afternoon Orren Walker had been released from McKay-Dee Hospital to attend the funeral of his son, Stan. The bullet wound at the back of Walker’s head had proved to be superficial, and the pen that Pierre had kicked into his left ear had been safely removed. Other than circular scars at the top of his forehead and across his right shoulder, spots where the Drano had burned his skin, the state’s eyewitness had nearly recovered from his injuries. Now he was being treated with high dosages of antibiotics to prevent infection at the site of the bullet wound and along the eustachian tube from his ear into his throat. All week from his hospital bed Walker had been talking with the police, going over the details of what had happened in the Hi-Fi Shop basement. When Stan was buried on Friday, Walker, with his wife and other son, and accompanied by a nurse and a police officer, attended first the funeral services then the graveside dedication. Two days later Walker would leave the hospital, soon to begin a long series of appearances in the courts as the chief witness for the prosecution.

  Michelle Ansley was buried Saturday morning following services at the Lindquist chapel, where Brent Richardson eulogized his new, pretty employee who had coaxed him to dance in a high school gym only a week before. To a large gathering Brent spoke of Michelle’s engagement and her wedding date of August 5, then quoted from two philosophical writings on death and the mysteries of life. When the services for Michelle had been concluded, her body was taken for interment to the same cemetery where Carol Naisbitt would be buried that afternoon.

  Saturday at noon in the Lindquist chapel, Byron and his children again stood in line next to Carol’s closed, flower-enshrouded casket, while people who could not attend the viewing the night before arrived early for the funeral to express their sympathy. Already, five days had passed since the murders, the mourning period having been prolonged first by the autopsy, then by the extra time needed to prepare Carol’s body for viewing. Then there had been the first viewing and now the second, and the funeral was still to come. Claire wondered how much longer all of it could last. With only the four of them standing in line, her family seemed so much smaller to her. She wanted the sorrow to end, and she wanted Cortney to awaken and speak to her. Her father had told her not to worry, that they still had to work to see that Cortney recovered, but her mother was fine and now all that remained was for them to endure these last formalities.

  At ten minutes to one, the organist began the prelude misic, and the last of th
e people in line spoke quickly to the family and found a place standing at the rear of the chapel. The pews and even the folding chairs that had been provided for extra seating were filled, and many people were standing. Just before one o’clock the funeral director, John Lindquist, drew the green accordion drape which separated the private family room, where the casket lay, from the pew-lined chapel. Behind the drape Carol’s casket was to be opened for the family a final time.

  In the private room with Byron and his children were the aunts, uncles, and cousins from both sides of the family. Joining the family, too, was Cortney’s friend, Kelly McKenna. Kelly could hear John Lindquist on the other side of the drape requesting silence of the people in the chapel, while the family said their last farewells. Lindquist then returned to the private room and removed the lid from Carol’s casket. The family gathered around the casket as Lindquist slipped the diamond ring from Carol’s finger, put it into a coin envelope, and handed it to Byron. Then he replaced her small diamond earrings with plain gold studs that Claire had given him. As the earrings were being exchanged, Kelly stood to the side where he could see Mrs. Naisbitt’s face. Kelly had been to funerals before, and to him dead people seemed merely to be sleeping, their faces powdered with a little makeup. But he remembered later that the feeling was different when he saw Mrs. Naisbitt lying in her casket.

  “I sat with the family and everything, and boy that’s when it really hits you. They had an open-coffin deal and I looked at her and I got this picture … Mrs. Naisbitt was a very pretty lady, but she didn’t look restful to me. Her face looked like it was tied up, and you could just tell she had died a horrible death.”

  With the earrings in place John Lindquist turned to Claire and said softly, “Would you like to place the veil in position?”

  Claire’s eyes filled with tears as she tied the veil in place and her brothers leaned down to kiss their mother for the last time through the veil. Then Byron kissed Shorty good-bye, everyone bowed their heads for a brief family prayer, and the casket was closed forever. Byron had tears in his eyes as the top of the casket was lowered, but he blinked them away, and moments later when the drape separating the private room from the crowded chapel started to open, his shoulders were pulled back and his eyes were dry.

  As the drape slid back, “Lara’s Theme” from Doctor Zhivago filled the chapel. When she heard it, Claire thought: This is the beginning of the end. It will all be over with soon, just a couple more hours.

  The main speaker at the funeral services was an amiable man, a doctor named Paul Southwick. Paul and his wife Beverly had been close friends with the Naisbitts for over thirty years, and in that time the two families had taken a lot of trips together, played a lot of bridge, seen a lot of movies. Memories for each of them were intertwined. As he stood at the pulpit in front of the chapel, Dr. Southwick reminded those gathered there that beautiful memories are important, and that people are the most important ingredient of beautiful memories. He said that Carol and Byron had worked to create lasting memories for their children, pleasant and meaningful experiences for them throughout their lives, and that they had done well in leaving behind these memories for the children to keep, now that Carol was gone.

  Recalling some of the lighter memories he had of the Naisbitts, Dr. Southwick made people in the chapel smile when he told the story of the bowl of red punch that once overturned onto Carol’s new white carpet, and Byron’s comment, “We’ll have to get some more punch and dye the rest of the rug.” He told of Carol missing the group’s New Year’s Eve party that year for the first time in almost thirty years, to be with her newly adopted granddaughter, Natalie.

  “She doted on her own children,” he said, “and took them places and looked out for them. She was concerned about their happiness and how she could make them happier. And of course,” he added, “that is what led her into the horrible thing that happened at the Hi-Fi Shop. It was her love and her concern for her children that brought her to this tragic ending of her life.”

  In speaking of family memories and then of Carol, Dr. Southwick had managed to keep his voice strong and clear, and his anecdotes especially had had a calming effect over his listeners. But then he turned to Cortney and the suffering the boy had endured, the horror he must have experienced, the loss his father and brothers and sister must feel, and tears came to his eyes and he was unable to continue. The Southwicks had lost a child of their own almost twelve years before when their eight-year-old daughter had tumbled over a waterfall in the mountains behind their home. Her father had found her and two other children lying at the bottom of the falls the day after Christmas. When Dr. Southwick tried to speak again, all he could say was, “I can understand their feelings.”

  Though he had planned to speak at greater length about Cortney, Dr. Southwick cut his remarks short, and when he found his voice again, he ended his eulogy: “I believe it’s fitting for us to commemorate the life of Carol now because just within the last three or four days the trees have suddenly flourished into leaf and new blossoms have appeared, reminding us that life does come forth from what seems dead, reaffirming the Easter message that there is indeed a resurrection for all. It’s reassuring to know that Carol, By, and their children someday will be reunited.”

  After Dr. Southwick left the pulpit, another man rose and sang “Oh, What a Day,” which was followed by a short benediction. The people in the chapel still were seated and silent when the organist began the postlude with the one song Byron had requested she play in memory of Carol, “Hawaiian Wedding Song.” At the song’s conclusion the pallbearers stood and wheeled the casket still upon the bier past the organ, past the pulpit, and through the open doors at the front of the chapel to the waiting funeral coach. The family followed. Later, the one scene from the funeral services that would remain in the minds of many of the people seated in the chapel was the final one: Byron walking alone behind Carol’s mahogany casket, and the organist playing “Goodnight, Sweetheart.”

  “As we were pulling into the cemetery at the top of the hill and looked back,” remembered Brett, “there was a solid train of cars for a mile and a half, clear back to the mortuary and still in the parking lot waiting to come. Just blocks and blocks and blocks of cars. It was gratifying, you know, that she had as many friends as she did.”

  The city of Ogden recently had banned funeral processions, but exceptions were made for the three victims of the Hi-Fi Murders. For each funeral, police were stationed to block traffic at every intersection along Washington Boulevard, and the drivers in the processions were told to ignore the traffic lights.

  Carol was to be interred in Washington Heights Memorial Park, which sat on a rise south of Ogden looking down upon the city and out upon the Wasatch mountain front spreading northward. It was a green, peaceful setting interrupted only by jets from Hill Field flying maneuvers to the south. Grass and clover surrounded the plain marble headstones set flat to the ground, and white weeping birch were interspersed with evergreens around the perimeter and in selected islands throughout the grounds. That Saturday afternoon in late April was warm and sunny.

  At the entrance to the cemetery, highway patrol cars blocked northbound traffic and funneled the funeral procession through the gates. Inside, because of crank calls received by the Naisbitts (a typical circumstance in the aftermath of a major homicide), armed guards had been positioned around the grounds as a security precaution. When the family arrived in the light-blue and white limousines from the funeral home, they proceeded along the cemetery paths meandering to the east. Across the green lawn and through the trees, they could see a large mound of fresh flowers marking the grave of Michelle Ansley. In the grass near Carol’s grave site the press had laid their camera and sound cables and made themselves as inconspicuous as possible as they waited for the family to arrive and the graveside dedication to begin. That night the Naisbitts would see themselves and the long procession of cars on the evening news.

  Chairs for the family had been set up near
the site, and the Nais-bitts sat in them, waiting for the rest of the people to arrive. It was a long wait, much longer than the dedication itself would require. The flowers that could fit into vans had been loaded at the mortuary and rushed to the cemetery where they were now being stacked around the grave site. Once inside the cemetery gates, the hundreds of cars driven by the mourners still had to be parked tightly three abreast along the car paths.

  When at last the people had arrived and parked and gathered behind the family on the east side of the grave, the pallbearers lifted Carol’s casket from the funeral coach and carried it across the lawn, setting it among the flowers. Then the bishop of the Naisbitt’s church ward stood before the crowd and announced that Carol’s grave would be dedicated by Byron Naisbitt’s brother-in-law, Lynn Richardson.

  In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the small patch of ground that is to be the final mortal resting place of the deceased traditionally is dedicated as a place of peace and solitude, and perhaps a place of contemplation for the family when they come to visit. The dedicator expresses gratitude for the life of the deceased, and prays that the ground be safe from desecration and that the remains be left undisturbed by the elements of the earth until the time of resurrection. Lynn’s dedication began that way, slowly and thoughtfully.

  Standing at the west end of Carol’s grave and facing the family and the hundreds of those gathered around them to the east, Lynn prayed first for all of the spiritual things in a traditional dedication. But then the bitterness crept into his voice, and he seemed unable to control it. He raised his right hand to the sign of the square, an antiquated Mormon gesture that once signified a vow or commitment. Few people had seen it used in the past twenty years, and to those facing him now it seemed a sign of vengeance. With his arm raised at a right angle, he spoke bitterly of a society that would tolerate “this senseless killing!” Coupled with the rage in his voice, the words made several people look up suddenly. But he didn’t stop there. In a voice growing in anger he described the deed as “cowardly” and the deaths as “useless,” and before he could find the words to end the dedication in the name of Jesus Christ, he asked God for vengeance on the perpetrators’ souls.