A Season in Purgatory

by Dominick Dunne

  “I’d like your undershorts as well.”

  “If Bridey hasn’t put them in the laundry.”

  “Why undershorts, for God’s sake?” asked Sandro.

  “Ejaculation stains, Congressman,” replied Captain Riordan.

  “Oh, Father, how terrible for you to have to hear such a thing,” said Grace. “The profiterole is melting, Gerald. Can Bridey pass it?”

  “It was my understanding that the girl wasn’t raped,” said Desmond.

  “How could you know that?” asked Captain Riordan.

  “Dr. Liu, the state’s chief medical examiner, did more than six hours of forensic examination on the body and said that she had not been sexually molested.”

  “May I ask how you would know such a thing?”

  “I am the chief of staff at St. Monica’s Hospital, where the autopsy was performed.”

  “And Dr. Liu reported his findings to you?”

  “I am also the president of the hospital.”

  “I see.” He exchanged a glance with Detective Potts.

  When Constant left the room, Gerald said, “I assume you are questioning more people than just my son?”

  “Oh, yes. Everyone who was at the dance. And the group who went back to the Wadsworths’ house after the dance.”

  “Do you know what I think, Captain?” asked Gerald.

  “What?”

  “Kids like this, in a neighborhood like this, wouldn’t be responsible for such a terrible crime. These kids at the club are not druggies. Oh, they may drink an occasional beer or two, or even three, from time to time, but they’re good kids. They’re all from good homes. It was probably a transient. A drifter. Someone off Interstate Ninety-five. Have you thought of that?”

  “Your son was drinking vodka, not beer,” said Captain Riordan.

  “Are you sure you won’t have dessert and coffee, Captain?” asked Grace.

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Bradley. We’re on duty.”

  “Anyway, the profiterole is ruined. Look, Gerald, it’s all melted,” said Grace. “Bridey will be furious.”

  “Perhaps then you’d do us the honor of closing the meal with grace, Father Murphy,” said Gerald.

  Father Murphy bowed his head. All at the table except Sims Lord, who was not a Catholic, bowed their heads. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. We give Thee thanks, O Lord, for these Thy gifts, which we have just received through Thy bounty. Amen.”

  As the group walked into the hall from the dining room, Constant came down the winding stair carrying an armful of clothes. “Bridey’s slipping, Ma,” he said. “She didn’t pick up the laundry today. Let me get a garbage bag from the kitchen to put all this in, Captain.”

  “Never mind that. Detective Potts has a bag. Let me see. Shirt. Tie. Jacket. Loafers. Socks. Undershorts.” He looked at the soles of the shoes. “These loafers are black. I thought they were brown.”

  “No. Black. I didn’t bring my brown ones home from school for the vacation,” said Constant.

  “I see,” said Captain Riordan. Then he lifted the undershorts in the air.

  “Oh, Father Murphy, come into the library,” said Grace quickly. “I want to show you some of the family pictures. Did you know that the Pope came to this house on his last visit to the United States?”

  “Is it possible that we could search the house while we are here, Mr. Bradley?” asked Captain Riordan.

  “Search my house?” asked Gerald.

  “Do you have a search warrant?” asked Sims Lord, speaking for the first time since the arrival of the police.

  “No.”

  “Certainly you know you cannot search a house without a search warrant,” said Sims Lord.

  “I am aware of that. But I thought as long as we were here, you would not object.”

  “I can guarantee that my client does not object in principle, but I think this must all be done according to Hoyle,” said Sims Lord.

  “Fine. No objection,” said Captain Riordan. “Would you tell me your name once more?”

  “Lord. Sims Lord.”

  “Sims Lord.” He wrote down the name on his pad. “You are a lawyer?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said your client would not object. Who here is your client?”

  “I am,” said Gerald. “Mr. Lord handles all my acquisitions and business transactions, but he is also a great family friend.”

  “I see.”

  “May I ask what is it you would have been searching the house for?” asked Jerry.

  “The bat.”

  “I thought you said you had the bat.”

  “We have part of the bat only. It broke in two during the assault. There is an indentation on the side where it came in contact with the victim’s head.”

  “Where was the bat found?”

  “In the wooded area beyond the far side of your tennis court near two large pools of blood,” said the captain.

  “Look. I see no reason why the captain and the detective can’t search the house, Sims,” said Gerald. “Certainly we have nothing to hide.”

  “It is just the procedure I was thinking of,” replied Sims Lord.

  “You could sign a consent to search premises without a search warrant,” said Captain Riordan.

  “Fine, fine,” said Gerald.

  Riordan indicated to Detective Potts to go ahead with the search while he prepared the paper for Gerald to sign.

  From the library could be heard the sound of the piano. There were several melodious chords and then came Grace’s contralto voice. “I’ll take you home again, Kathleen, Across the ocean wild and wide, To where your heart has ever been, Since first you were my bonnie bride.”

  The group stood around in the hall. Gerald signed. The brothers talked among themselves. Presently Detective Potts returned with a baseball bat.

  “Found this in what the maids in the kitchen call the mud room,” said the detective. “There’s a whole bunch of bats there, all the same make.”

  “We keep all our athletic equipment in the mud room,” said Gerald. “My sons excel at sports.”

  Captain Riordan examined the bat.

  Constant, watching, snapped his fingers. “Of course,” he said. “We were all playing softball, the whole family and our guests on Easter Sunday. I hit the ball and the bat cracked, and I flung it into the woods, and nobody could find it. Do you remember, guys?”

  “That’s so,” said Jerry. “My God, and that’s the bat whoever killed Winifred used.”

  There was a silence.

  “We’d like you to come down to the station with us, Constant,” said Captain Riordan.

  “For what?” asked Gerald.

  “Fingerprints.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Constant pleasantly. “I understand totally. No problem, Pa.”

  “We will also need a hair and blood sample.”

  “Fine.”

  “I am a lawyer, too, Captain,” said Jerry. “If you don’t object, I’ll go along with my brother.”

  “And Harrison Burns, too. We’ll want your fingerprints,” said Captain Riordan.

  The following day Constant and I were due to return to Milford, but Gerald felt that it would be inappropriate for Constant not to attend the funeral of Winifred Utley, and I, as a guest who had been at the club the night before her death, was included. Gerald called Dr. Shugrue and said that we would be one day late in returning.

  We arrived at the funeral in the Bradley limousine driven by Charlie. There were television and news cameras positioned outside the church. I spotted Detective Potts, the brother of Walter Potts, standing across from St. John’s Episcopal Church, behind a car. He was holding a camera with a telephoto lens, photographing mourners. Constant and I had barely spoken to each other since the night Winifred died, but I nudged him to make him aware, simply indicating with a nod of my head in the direction of Detective Potts. He looked.

  “That’s standard procedure,” he said calmly, returning
his gaze to me. “They always do that.”

  Constant walked tall and handsome, his face serious. To a stranger he would have appeared to be just a concerned friend of the deceased. He took his mother’s arm as they ascended the steps outside the church. Standing at the top of the steps was Captain Riordan, who was watching the crowd. All the people that I had come to recognize as belonging to the club seemed to be entering the church at the same time. Piggy and Felicia French. Buzzy Thrall. Eve Soby. “The club crowd,” as Gerald always referred to them. Constant spoke to several younger people he knew, but I sensed that they withdrew from him as quickly as possible. Gerald, walking side by side with me and Jerry, followed Constant and Grace up the steps.

  On the altar were various floral arrangements. Ushers handed a printed program to each person entering the church. On the top was printed IN LOVING MEMORY OF WINIFRED UTLEY. JANUARY 22, 1958–APRIL 30, 1973. The pastor’s name, it said, was Timothy Farquhar, Jr. The organist’s name, it said, was Emil Toland.

  The church was filled to overflowing. Both the sadness of a young girl’s death, years before her time, and the notoriety of her killing brought forth a crowd that was unusual for funerals at St. John’s. We, the Bradleys and I, sat midway up the center aisle of the church. Late arrivals had difficulty finding seats, and the ushers asked people to move in farther in their pews to make room. Some people, wanting to see everything, stood so that the latecomers could pass in front of them to the interior parts of the pew, keeping the aisle seats for themselves.

  The coffin was already in place. On top of it was a simple spray of yellow roses. Luanne Utley quietly entered from a side door, followed by Mr. Utley. Mrs. Utley touched the coffin. “It’s out of order. It’s out of order,” she said. Ray Utley put his arm around his wife’s waist and led her to their seat in the front pew. They then leaned forward and lowered their heads in prayer.

  Leverett and Louise Somerset arrived late, with Weegie behind them. As they walked up the aisle to the front of the church, Constant turned and looked at Weegie. At the same time Weegie turned her head and looked at him. They continued up the aisle and were seated in the pew directly behind the Utleys. Mr. Utley looked around to greet Leverett, and Leverett, in turn, gently patted Mr. Utley’s shoulder.

  The service was simple and brief, marred only by one minor altercation when two of the ushers threw out a television cameraman who tried to film the service for the evening news, after sneaking into the organ loft. At the completion of the final prayer, the Reverend Mr. Farquhar announced that the interment would be private but that the Utleys would greet friends in their home following the service.

  “So stark, wasn’t it? I find those Protestant services terribly cold and impersonal,” said Grace, looking out the window of the Bradley limousine. We were sitting in the car in front of St. John’s after the service, waiting for the other cars to start. “No kneeling. Just leaning forward and bowing their heads to pray. Not a tear, did you notice? Just, ‘Hymn number one sixty-nine, first and third verses.’ Or Psalm number whatever. Or Scripture this or that. I think there’s nothing like a eulogy at a time like this. People need it. Oh, that minister! What was his name? Timothy Farquhar, wasn’t it? Such a cold fish. So Protestant, wasn’t he? Personally, I like to cry at a funeral. Do you remember Cardinal’s eulogy when the Ryan girl was run over by that bus, Gerald? So moving. Not a dry eye in the cathedral.”

  No one replied.

  “And so short, the whole thing. I don’t think we were there twenty minutes. I like a Mass myself. And a choir. I sent a Mass card to Mrs. Utley, by the way. She probably won’t even know what it is, but I think it’s important. Look, Gerald, there’s a photographer trying to take our picture. He’s running along right next to the car.”

  “Everyone look straight ahead,” said Gerald. “Pretend you don’t notice.”

  “Why would he want to be photographing us?” asked Grace. “I’ve never seen photographers at a funeral before.”

  No one replied.

  “Gerald, do you really think we have to go to the Utleys’ house? I mean, we didn’t know any of them. I never knew what the woman even looked like until I saw her in the church today. Pretty little thing, in that sort of Waspy way, do you know what I mean? Like half the women in the club. They all look alike, don’t they? Those gold barrettes they wear. And the pageboy. They all dress alike, too. Peck and Peck. Odd to wear dark blue, instead of black, to a funeral, I thought. What in the world did she mean when she said, ‘It’s out of order. It’s out of order’?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Gerald.

  “Do you know, Jerry?” asked Grace.

  “No.”

  “Constant, what did she mean?”

  “I don’t know, Ma.”

  “She meant it was out of order, the natural order of things, for a child to die before her parents,” I said.

  “Oh.”

  There was silence in the car.

  “What do you say, Gerald? Do we have to go? I sent flowers. I sent a note. I sent a Mass card. We went to the funeral. We signed the book in the church so they’ll know we were there. Why should we go to the house?”

  “We’re going, Grace,” said Gerald. “We’ll go through the line. We’ll all say, ‘Sorry for your trouble,’ and we’ll leave. No one take a drink if drinks are offered. Does everyone understand? No drinks. Nor a sandwich. We’ll just go through the line and then we’ll leave.”

  “But why?” insisted Grace.

  “Because our son was one of the last people to see her alive, that’s why. It’s a courtesy.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Don’t go too fast, Charlie,” said Gerald to the chauffeur. “We don’t want to arrive at their house before the Utleys do.”

  “Did you notice our flowers, Gerald? The cross of white orchids? With the purple centers? I thought ours was the prettiest wreath there.”

  The atmosphere in the Utley house was subdued. In the sunroom a bar had been set up. A maid in a black uniform passed cheese puffs. Most people stood in line quietly, waiting to offer their condolences to Mr. and Mrs. Utley. Gerald and Grace stopped to speak to friends. I stood behind Constant in the line.

  “I’m Constant Bradley, Mrs. Utley,” he said. He held out his hand.

  Luanne Utley looked at Constant and nodded. She did not offer him her hand in return.

  He returned his hand to his side. “I am so terribly sorry about Winifred.”

  Luanne continued to look at Constant. Then she turned to look at her husband, who followed her gaze back to Constant.

  “I saw her on the night it happened. At the club dance. I am so sorry.”

  She nodded.

  “I don’t know if you remember, but you once gave me a ride home from Milford right to the door of my house when I was hitchhiking with my friend, Harrison Burns. You were so nice and went out of your way. Do you remember?”

  “I remember,” replied Mrs. Utley. “I think there are people behind you waiting to say hello.”

  He turned to me behind him. Grace and Gerald had caught up. “This is my mother and father, and Harrison Burns, whom you have met. He was at the club the other night, too.”

  Grace and Gerald held out their hands. “I’m sorry for your trouble,” said Gerald. “I am so terribly sorry, Mrs. Utley,” said Grace.

  “It makes you question if there is a loving God,” said Luanne Utley. “I believe there is, I suppose, but I don’t understand His plan. I don’t know why this had to happen to a girl as innocent as Winifred was, with so much to live for.”

  Then Mrs. Utley looked beyond Constant to the next person standing in line to speak to her. “Hello, Felicia,” she said, holding out her hand. “Thank you for coming.”

  If Constant was aware that he had been snubbed, he gave no indication of it. Leaving, someone—Buzzy Thrall we later heard it was, from the Utleys’ maid who told Colleen—said, “He roughed up Weegie Somerset last summer in Watch Hill.” We walked on as
if we had not heard.

  5

  As the weeks went by, there was an outcry by the residents of Scarborough Hill, fueled by a reporter named Gus Bailey, who seemed to have an obsession with the case, that no arrest had been made in the Winifred Utley murder. Back at Milford for the spring term prior to graduation, we read the accounts of the police work in the newspapers. Constant discussed them with a curious detachment, as if they had to do with other people than ourselves. Finally, in response to the ever increasing criticism, the police chief answered his critics in a press conference that was televised in part on the local news.

  “I believe I know who killed Winifred Utley,” said Police Chief Dennis Quish in an opening statement.

  I watched the television set, scarcely daring to breathe. I could feel the more rapid pace of my heart. We were in the Common Room of Hayes Hall, in the free period between dinner and study hall. It was crowded with boys. I looked over at Constant. He watched the set, surrounded by the coterie that always gathered around him during this period, the bridge-playing group. He seemed unperturbed by Quish’s statement. There on the screen behind the police chief was Captain Riordan, who had quizzed us, separately and together, gether, for hours, who had taken our fingerprints, who had taken hair and blood samples from us.

  “It is my theory that there were two assaults, the first in the wooded area that separates the Somerset and Bradley estates, where a struggle occurred, and the second where the actual killing took place, nearer to the Utley house,” said Chief Quish.

  “Are you willing to share your thoughts on who it is?” asked Gus Bailey. Bailey had followed the case from the beginning.

  “No, I am unwilling. I cannot prove it, so I cannot reveal it,” replied the chief.

  “Has this person been questioned?” asked Bailey again.

  “Yes.”

  “Has this person taken a lie detector test?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Legal reasons.”

  “Do you feel you have been impeded in your investigation?” asked Gus Bailey.