The Body In The Water

by Fitzpatrick, Morgan

  A sentence of death: appropriate, and not entirely unwelcome.

  Kubiak did not respond to Bauer, simply refastened his St. Jude Medallion over his neck, dressing slowly as the doctor prepared the prescription and with a clinical detachment worthy of the physician observed his own belly, suspended like a watermelon from his hips. For no reason, he thought of his dying daughter. Though he hated himself for doing so, Kubiak wished she would get it over with and simply let go.

  Unwilling to dwell on it any longer, Kubiak turned to thoughts of the Bitson murder investigation. Earlier in the week, Kubiak had visited the local McDonalds where, according to the Medical Examiner, Missy had consumed her final meal.

  “You’re in luck, sir,” the shift manager had said. “Sunday afternoon, between two and five, is our slowest period. If we sold any Bacon Double Cheeseburgers that day, it wouldn’t have been many.”

  The manager was young, no more than a teenager, and Kubiak wondered at how he managed himself, let alone how he carried the responsibility for others.

  He shuffled to his office to gather the receipts for the Sunday in question while Kubiak indulged a craving for an extra large cola and a deep fried cherry pie. The store was beginning to fill; teenagers with backpacks recently out from school and young mothers with strollers, up from a walk along the river or from window-shopping in the stores along Main Street as it passed through the center of town. It would be window-shopping, thought Kubiak, at least on this side of the river. For the most part, the locals were either unable to afford, or unwilling to pay, the big city prices charged by the area shops that catered principally to the tourist trade.

  Seneca Falls was beyond an easy commute from New York City and the wealth that accrues typically to a community from moneyed professionals residing locally, and working elsewhere, even though on the outskirts it had its share of monster and modest estate style homes and the private Strathallan Academy for Boys. It was better off than most in the northeast, a community of shopkeepers, retail and service industry workers, with a transient population supplementing the indigenous labor force by working the low-paying agriculture and light industrial jobs the others didn’t want. The shopkeepers might be owners, but they were not necessarily consumers, Seneca Falls dependent on the annual influx of summer tourists to sustain its economic prosperity.

  The phenomenon was a relatively recent one, a decade perhaps or a dozen years, certainly no more. Prior to the nineties recession, forestry had been the principal livelihood for most. For twenty years, until his premature death in nineteen seventy-two, Kubiak’s own father had operated a logging truck, accepting the position upon leaving high school in his junior year because, though the work was hard and the hours long, employment was steady and the pay adequate on which to raise a small Seneca Falls family, which ultimately consisted only of Kubiak’s father, his mother, and Art.

  Physically, Frank Kubiak was substantial, a big, rough-hewn log of a man seemingly carved from a single piece of hard wood; apple or cherry, that if stoked was slow to ignite, but once started burned long and hot with a simmering and relentless heat. Though his father drank heavily, it was never while working or driving. Ironic, then, he should sacrifice his life to a drunk driver—a woman—while returning from Albany after purchasing a rebuilt alternator meant for a sixty-seven Cat diesel, on a snowy Interstate during a Wednesday evening on which Frank had consumed only coffee, a chili cheese dog and cigarettes.

  Kubiak neither mourned nor rejoiced the loss of his father. By then, whatever impact the man had on him had been etched permanently on his personality, like a scar. Growing up, Art Kubiak had as normal a childhood as most, refusing to accept, just because his father occasionally beat and belittled him, that he was abused. After all, by the time he was fifteen, Art was himself pushing two hundred pounds and almost six feet tall, able to defend himself and, on days when his father had been drinking, able to fight back. By contrast, with the passing of her husband, Magda Kubiak seemed to fade, gradually to disappear, as if Frank were the tapestry on which her life had been accidentally smeared, like a stain. That she and Frank never seemed close made her response to his passing all the more difficult for Art to fathom.

  Kubiak stood sipping his cola, absently brushing the crumbs from his topcoat, realizing after a while that he was drawing looks. It was to be expected. He was, after all, the officer in charge of the investigation into the killing of someone they knew, or knew of. (Was it curious that despite this investment no one from town approached him to inquire as to his progress?) After five minutes, the manager returned.

  Kubiak said, “That was quick.”

  “Computers,” said the young man, as if Kubiak should understand. “It was like I thought. We sold only two BDCs between two and five, both on the same ticket: at three thirty-eight in the afternoon.” The duty manager brightened, picked absently at an angry looking pimple as if it were an insect bite, and said, “They ate in.”

  “Oh?” said Kubiak.

  The young man nodded. “Yep. Drive-through processes its orders on a separate till. We won’t serve walk-up traffic through the window, which means they ordered here.” He indicated the service counter. “Does this help?”

  “It may.” Reaching out for the receipt, he said, “Can I take this?”

  “Sure,” the young man agreed. “We have back up copies, for head office, you know, in case they want to audit our sales.”

  “Why should they want to do that?” Kubiak asked, absently.

  “We’re independently owned. The franchisee pays a royalty on sales and is obligated to purchase all supplies from the parent. Sometimes they audit to ensure what we sell jives with what we buy; make sure we aren’t buying burgers off the back of a truck, you know?” The young man chuckled at his own joke.

  “Makes sense,” said Kubiak. “I’ll need the names and contact details for all staff that were on duty Sunday afternoon.” Narrowing his eyes, he struggled to read the time stamp on the receipt. “Within half an hour either side of three thirty-eight.” As an afterthought, he asked, “Don’t suppose you have security cameras?”

  The young man waggled his head left to right. “Been asking management but so far no go. Never been robbed. Not worth the investment, I guess.”

  Afterward, Kubiak sat smoking in his vehicle, studying the printout. In addition to the Bacon Double Cheeseburger, French fries and small diet soda, the receipt itemized two Big Mac Sandwiches, a Super-Size Fries and an extra large Coke: an additional beverage and a substantial meal for two people. Missy had not dined alone on the day of her murder. Her companion had been a he, not a she; what self-respecting female would permit such a public display of fat-food indulgence, Kubiak concluded? Missy’s companion had eaten well before snapping her neck, though in his mind Kubiak was not yet entirely convinced he could prove the killer and the companion to be one in the same; soon, but not yet.

  Henry Bauer grunted, interrupting Kubiak’s thoughts, reminding him he had buttoned his shirt and fastened his necktie, but had yet to pull on his pants.

  “Don’t flash my staff, Art.”

  “Scare them to death.” Kubiak grinned.

  “The pharmacy will fill the prescription and advise you on how much to take and when to take it.”

  Convinced the medication would be no more helpful to him than Jack Daniels—or Jim Beam—Kubiak filed the prescription deep in a back pocket, together with a spent tissue and loose change.

  Bauer said, “The blood test will take at least two, three weeks. When I have the results, my nurse will let you know.”

  “I’m free to go?” Kubiak asked, tucking in his shirttail and fastening his belt.

  “Art,” Bauer said, his eyes fixed uncharacteristically on the floor, “I appreciate the strain you’re under. It’s difficult circumstances with Luba, and now with the killing, but you make it impossible by refusing to take responsibility for your own health.”

  “It’s why we have HMO’s, Henry.”

  “
Joke if you like, but what you’re doing affects more than just yourself. So will your passing, particularly if it follows on the heels of your daughter, or worse yet, comes before. If I didn’t know better, given your attitude and total disregard for the direction in which you’re headed, I’d say you were suicidal.” He said it with a sheepish smile, though with little doubt he thought it possibly true.

  Kubiak said, “I’ll take it under advisement.” He reached for his jacket, which earlier he had hung from a hook on the examination room door.

  As he pulled it over his shoulders, Bauer said, “She was a patient here, Art. The girl, Missy Bitson.”

  “Oh?” Kubiak was noncommittal, aware of the constraints governing doctor-patient confidentiality and the difficulty in meaningful disclosure. “Half the town is a patient here, Henry.”

  Bauer appeared to be ill, his expression pained, as if vexed by some internal dilemma. He removed his half-glasses, his eyes still fixed to the floor, as if contemplating a mark that only he could see. The exhaust fan hummed. Outside the small room, Kubiak heard the voices and sounds of a busy working environment, though nothing to indicate what the nature of the work might be. Patiently, he waited for Bauer to continue.

  When finally he spoke, he said, “You’ve received the preliminary autopsy report, I assume?” Bauer raised his eyes to meet Kubiak.

  Kubiak said, “I have, though aside from cause of death, it’s inconclusive.”

  “And?”

  “Pretty straight forward; her neck was broken.” Kubiak refrained from elaborating.

  “Nothing more?”

  “What is this is about, Henry?” asked Kubiak, thinking he needed a cigarette. He rubbed his jaw self consciously, while Bauer watched.

  “Was she raped?” Henry asked.

  Kubiak paused before replying. Missy Bitson was thirteen and therefore legally under the age of consent; in Kubiak’s mind this did not necessarily equate to ethically under the age. “She’d had sex, Henry,” he said. “Fairly recently before her death, though based on the forensic evidence it’s unlikely she was raped. I don’t say the killing wasn’t a direct result of sexual misconduct, but for now, we don’t think it includes rape.”

  Bauer came to a decision. Her reputation in tatters, Missy could no longer be maligned, though regretfully she could no longer be redeemed. He paused, from embarrassment or for effect, Kubiak didn’t know.

  “The girl was HIV, Art.”

  “She was HIV? You mean AIDS?”

  “You would have known soon enough, when her blood work returned from the lab. The mother didn’t know, and I hadn’t yet been able to tell the girl.”

  Kubiak said, “Hadn’t been able, or hadn’t been willing.”

  “I would have done. She died before I could.”

  “But you knew she was promiscuous.”

  Bauer shifted uncomfortably. “I knew she wasn’t a virgin. I’d treated her for various infections over the last year.”

  Kubiak interrupted. “Over the last year?”

  “The child was active at an early age.”

  “And you never thought to report it to child welfare? To her parents? To me?”

  “She knew what she was doing, Art. Missy was not being abused by her father; she was insistent on that. Whatever the girl was into was of her own free will.”

  “She was thirteen, she had no free will.”

  “Listen, Art,” said Bauer, raising his hands as if to deflect a blow. “I thought I could counsel her, convince her to stop, or at least be more careful. I’d warned her about taking precautions against the dangers: pregnancy and venereal disease. In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined this. I mean, we’ve had a run on amoxicillin, I’ll admit; it’s like perpetual spring fever around here, lately. The kids are screwing like rabbits. In a small town like this, seems they have nothing better to do. But HIV? It’s just not something I’ve ever seen. Not here. Ever.”

  Kubiak considered the implications, resisting an urge to laugh. Poor Missy Bitson; she had opened her legs and like an infected email attachment had willingly spread her virus to the unsuspecting world. Killer spam. Such irony, thought Kubiak, that ultimately Missy should have her revenge in this way.

  Before turning to the door, Kubiak said, “Well Henry, from what we know of her reputation you may want to plan for a full-blown epidemic.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  “ART,” SAID SARA in a way that made Kubiak flinch. “I’m not comfortable withholding the fact she had HIV. It’s a public health issue. We have a responsibility to react.”

  “How, Sara, with an announcement in The Sentinel-Tribune?”

  “We could leak the details,” offered Burke. “I agree with Sara, Art.” Unlikely as it seemed, Sara was grateful of his support.

  “To what end?” Kubiak wanted to know.

  “To see it doesn’t spread. We have it from two reliable sources now,” Sara said, holding up two fingers in the sign of peace, though her tone remained combative. “The doctor and the medical examiner. She was sexually active. There’s a strong possibility one or more of her partners may take this home to a girlfriend or a wife. There’s also a strong possibility whoever killed her found out and broke her neck because of it.”

  “A call to Seamus from an anonymous source?” said Burke, warming to his proposal.

  Kubiak had just returned from the office of Henry Bauer. When asked by his deputies, Kubiak implied a clean bill of health. Eying him suspiciously, they dismissed the notion as being either overly optimistic or medically unsound.

  Kubiak said, “No longer concerned for our victim’s reputation, Sara?”

  With little but circumstantial information available, thus far, to strongly influence the course of the inquiry, Sara was more concerned with the need for public disclosure of Missy’s startling condition. “I agree with Chris,” she said, conceding to Burke. “Leak it to Mcteer. It might compel potential suspects to seek treatment.”

  “How does it help us, Sara? Medical records are confidential. We can’t know who is being treated, let alone why,” Kubiak said.

  They sat in Kubiak’s office, the remnants of a fast food meal—Styrofoam containers and paper napkins—littering his desk. From the limited take-out menu of the Gyros Palace Restaurant, Kubiak had chosen a grilled souvlaki dinner with Greek salad, roast potato and rice, Burke ditto and Sara a chicken pita with garlic mayonnaise. Must have her period, Burke thought before walking out the door to retrieve the phone-in order.

  Kubiak had offered to pay for the meal from petty cash and had asked Burke to return with beer. With customary old-world hospitality, the proprietor, Nicky Papandreou, had willingly obliged with a cold six-pack of which Kubiak now consumed his third. The powerfully tantalizing scent of Mediterranean spices that accompanied the arrival of the food now came back on Kubiak in the form of relentless heartburn, making his chest heave and his bowels bubble. He scratched the stubble at his chin, contemplating a trip to the john.

  “Well,” said Sara carefully, not yet having fully vetted her position. “We could stake out the medical center and the family doctor. No doubt in my mind that two minutes after the news breaks in The Sentinel-Tribune, Jordy will be on Henry’s doorstep looking for treatment.”

  Unconvinced, Kubiak said, “It’s no good, Sara; too haphazard. We don’t have the manpower and it would take too much time. There’s no guarantee either the clinic or Henry Bauer treats Jordy Bitson.”

  Hopeful, Sara said, “We could ask.”

  “It’s a Fifth Amendment issue.” Kubiak paused to sip beer straight from the can. “It would invalidate any hope for future prosecution. It’s the most egregious misinterpretation of Probable Cause imaginable.”

  Sara said, “In the death of a child, Art, I resent that such considerations should exist.”

  Fifth Amendment and Probable Cause considerations aside, the following day Sara commenced upon her own possible violation of the inalienable Constitutional rights of Jordy Bitson
. She disclosed to no one her strong, though unqualified, suspicion of the boy. That would come later, she decided, after obtaining sufficiently credible evidence; then, Wham!, she would haul in his skinny black ass and put him through the third degree, forcing a confession.

  Though her earlier interrogation of Jenny had supplied Sara with nothing concrete with which to build a case against Jordy, it had given her enough, inarguably, to question the nature of the relationship between him and Missy. According to Jen, Jordy was infatuated with Missy, emotionally and possibly sexually; from his demeanor, this was clearly implied. Jordy was protective, almost jealous of her company and the relationships she enjoyed with other boys. He arranged to meet with her and to walk her home after school, sometimes standing too close when he did, so as on occasion to accidentally make contact with a thigh, a breast, or her bum.