A Season in Purgatory

by Dominick Dunne

  “Impeded?”

  “Intimidated then?”

  “By whom?”

  “Wealthy people. Powerful people. Someone who could be protecting someone.”

  “I think the police have done a good job. Had there been a cover-up of any kind, I think it would have come to light by now. You cannot keep secrets in America.”

  “That has not been my experience, Chief Quish,” said Gus Bailey.

  “I have read your accounts of this case, Mr. Bailey,” replied Chief Quish.

  “Why has the medial examiner’s office refused to release a copy of the autopsy report?” asked Bailey.

  “I do not know that. That is not under my jurisdiction.”

  “It is not customary for the autopsy in a homicide to be performed in Farmington?” asked Gus Bailey.

  “Usually, yes.”

  “Why was it done at St. Monica’s Hospital?”

  “I do not know.”

  “So what happens?”

  “We wait. People have a way of tripping themselves up in time,” said the police chief.

  “Have you discussed your theory on who you think killed Winifred Utley with anyone?” asked Bailey.

  “I have told Mrs. Utley, Winifred’s mother, the name of the person.”

  “Do you believe she will reveal the killer’s name?”

  “I believe she will not reveal the name.”

  “Why?”

  “There is no proof. Only a feeling. But I have a written statement from Mrs. Utley.”

  “Will you read it?”

  “Of course. This is from Raymond Utley, Luanne Utley, the mother of Winifred Utley.” From his inside pocket Captain Quish took a folded piece of blue writing paper and opened it. The message was handwritten. “I quote: ‘Please, please, if you know anything, come forward. There must be someone who knows something who has remained silent. Somebody knows.’ ”

  I looked across the Common Room to Constant. For an instant our eyes met. Then quickly we both turned back to the television set.

  “Captain Riordan? May I ask you the same question I asked Chief Quish?” asked Gus Bailey.

  “What question was that?” asked the captain. He moved up from behind to take his place beside Chief Quish.

  “Has your investigation of this murder been impeded by wealthy and powerful people?”

  “I think Chief Quish has already answered that question, Mr. Bailey,” said Captain Riordan.

  Years later, at the trial, in the corridor of the courthouse, Captain Riordan, by then retired from the force, recalled that period for me. It was on the day that Kitt cut me in the hallway and Constant pissed on my trousers in the men’s room. Riordan, watching the Bradley family move as a group to the elevator for the lunch break, said to me, “Maybe it was the Bradley money. Maybe it was their position. But I believe I was subconsciously intimidated by them. I always thought you knew more than you were saying. I didn’t suspect you. I didn’t think you were responsible, but I thought you could be protecting Constant Bradley. But also, I didn’t want to believe it, about anyone in that family. Look at the good they’d done for the poor of the city. I mean, I grew up in Bog Meadow. I grew up on stories of the Bradleys. Do you remember Ben Potts, the detective who was with me, the black guy? He said that night after we left the house, ‘Listen, that guy Desmond saved my brother’s life. He operated on my brother wearing a tux. He held my brother’s heart in the palm of his hand while he took the bullet out. My brother’d be dead if it weren’t for him.’ And Congressman Sandro. Senator Sandro now. I voted for him then. I vote for him still. And the crippled one. What was his name?”

  “Jerry. Gerald Junior.”

  “Jerry. He almost had me convinced it was a transient off I-Ninety-five. And then there was Father Murphy. He was a straight-shooter all the way. I didn’t know until I saw him sitting at that table having dinner that he was an old friend of the family.”

  “But he wasn’t. That was his first time there. He was a dress extra, but he didn’t know it.”

  “I found that out later. It was a performance they put on for us, everyone participating, everyone playing a part. In all my years of police work I never had a suspect as willing to have his prints taken as Constant Bradley, or to be helpful in every way. In contrast, Billy Wadsworth, the other suspect, was snotty and difficult. And so was his old man. His old man told me Constant had roughed up the Somerset girl the summer before in Watch Hill, but she denied it and so did her family.”

  The program ended. Someone switched off the television set. That Constant had been near such a drama, that he was the last person to have danced with the ill-fated Winifred Utley on the night of her death, that he had been questioned by the police, fingerprinted, and released, enhanced his glamorous image at Milford. It was of far greater significance to his classmates than the visit of the Pope to his family’s home. For them, Winifred Utley had achieved the sort of mythic quality accorded to film stars who die tragically and too young, and Constant had become part of her legend.

  “What was she like?” the boys asked him over and over. “Tell us about Winifred.”

  He never balked at the questions. He seemed never to mind talking about her. “I hardly knew her,” he replied. “I’d only met her once before the night we danced together. She came through the woods at Easter, onto our property. We were playing softball, and she’d been sent over from Billy Wadsworth’s house to tell us we were making too much noise and were ruining the Easter egg hunt at the Wadsworths’. Ask Harry. He was there. She was a pretty little thing, wasn’t she, Harry? So fresh. So lovely. And a wonderful dancer.”

  But I went unquestioned by the boys. That I was there, too, that I had an acquaintance with Winifred Utley, meant very little to them, much as Constant tried to include me. I had never amounted to much in the eyes of the boys at Milford, even though I was about to be the valedictorian of our graduating class.

  The weeks went by. Nothing happened. The story ceased to appear in the newspapers and on the television news. Only Gus Bailey relentlessly pursued it. People talked of other things. I was tortured by the knowledge I possessed, but Constant seemed untroubled by thoughts of Winifred Utley.

  “Does it ever haunt you, about Winifred?” I asked.

  He looked away from me. He looked to the right, then to the left, as if in search of an answer. But then he said, quite simply, “I never give her a thought. It happened. It’s over. It was her fault. There’s nothing that can be done about it. We have to go on with our own lives. Why do you keep brooding, Harry, for Christ’s sake?”

  There was irritation in his voice as he said the last sentence. He walked away from me. He wanted not to see me anymore. At the door of his room, he turned back. “Besides, murder’s not the big deal it used to be.”

  We heard from Yale. We were in. Constant was elated. He ran to the hall telephone to call his father. Their conversation was loud and joyous, with whoops of Bradley delight emanating from Constant. I did not experience the elation I had expected to feel when I became the recipient of such glad tidings. We prepared for graduation. Constant, ever popular, was to be class speaker. I was to write his speech. And I did.

  The entire Bradley family arrived in two limousines. I was standing with Aunt Gert as we watched the cars come slowly down the hill to Hayes Hall. Charlie drove the first with Gerald and Grace, Congressman Sandro, Dr. Desmond, and Jerry. Charlie’s brother, Conor, who was called in on special occasions when the entire family went places together, drove the second with Maureen and her fiancé, Freddy Tierney, Mary Pat, and Kitt. Kitt looked adorable, even with the retainer on her teeth.

  Grace carried a garden parasol that matched the silk print of her Paris dress. “It’s the latest thing,” she said to Mrs. Shugrue, the wife of the headmaster, who had remarked on its usefulness on such a sunny day. “All the ladies at the races at Longchamps had them this year.” When she saw me, Grace kissed me on both cheeks. “Hello, Harrison, dear. My, how smart you look in
your white trousers and blazer. Gerald, have you seen Harrison?”

  Gerald greeted me in a jovial manner, much the friendliest he had ever shown me. I introduced them to Aunt Gert. She, dressed primly, acknowledged the introduction primly. She was no fan of the Bradleys, thinking they had somehow bedazzled me with their excessive lives, but Gerald greeted her warmly, called her Gert, and introduced her in turn to all of his children. “This is Harry’s aunt, who does so much good for the missionary fathers,” he said. “We are all so fond of your nephew, Gert.” Even Gert, by the end of the day, was not impervious to the Bradley charm.

  The family moved like royalty through the crowd of parents, students, and faculty, smiling and affable, waving to those they knew, kissing the cheeks of some, chatting, introducing. They walked differently at Milford than they did at Scarborough Hill, as certain of themselves in those surroundings, where they had given the chapel, the carillon, and the new library, as if they were in horse-drawn carriages waving to their subjects at Ascot. Congressman Sandro, Dr. Desmond, and Jerry had all preceded their graduating brother at Milford, and their return for the ceremonies was the occasion for fond greetings with favorite masters. The faculty all addressed Sandro as Congressman. He was the only Milford alumnus sitting in Washington, and over and over that day they spoke about his future as a senator and then, “with God’s will,” as they always intoned, they predicted that he would one day be in the Oval Office.

  “This is my fiancé,” Maureen kept saying over and over to everyone she met, introducing Freddy Tierney, who had not gone to Milford. Later in the day I heard from Kitt, the family chatterbox, that harsh words had passed between Maureen and her father in the wake of Winifred Utley’s death. Maureen said that her upcoming wedding would be ruined by all the negative attention on her brother. She told her father that Freddy did not want Constant to be an usher. Gerald would brook no criticism of any of his children, especially not from his daughter’s fiancé, who was not yet even a member of the family. When he spoke, according to Kitt, his voice was like ice. “Constant is going to be an usher in your wedding, whether Freddy Tierney likes it or not, and your sisters and you are going to dance with him for all to see, just as you and Freddy are going to sit in the front row at his graduation from Milford and cheer for him. Or there is going to be no wedding. Do I make myself clear?”

  On the long walk up the hill from Hayes Hall to the chapel, where Mass was to begin the graduation ceremony, students and parents lined the walk as the graduating class, in caps and gowns, and the faculty marched through. Then, following Mass, the ceremony took place in the gymnasium. The Bradleys had the whole front row of seats that had been set up for the parents and friends of the graduating class.

  Dr. Shugrue had revised his unfavorable opinion of Constant since the dirty-picture episode. When he introduced him to speak, he said, “Constant Bradley is what everyone has in mind when they think of a son. At Milford, he has been an honor student, vice president of the student body, house president of Hayes Hall, and captain of the tennis and lacrosse teams. Oh, lest you think he is too perfect, there have been the occasional lapses of a disciplinary nature—” Here the student body roared with laughter, everyone remembering his near expulsion of the year before. Dr. Shugrue, in good humor, held up his hand to quell the laughter and continued. “But these we must blame on an overabundance of youthful vitality. If there were such a thing at Milford as a vote on the student most likely to succeed, there is no doubt that Constant Bradley would win that vote hands down.”

  When our names were called and we went forward to receive our diplomas, no one received more applause than Constant Bradley. His family accompanied their applause by cheers and shouts, and a stamping of feet by his brothers, and Constant acknowledged his ovation with a wave and charming smile. I realized that in spite of what had happened life would continue almost unchanged for Constant and his family. His mother and sisters, ignorant of the facts, would remain steadfast in their adoration of him. His father and brothers, who knew of his culpability, would overlook it, as if it were nothing more than a youthful prank that had gotten out of hand, the memory of which would be dimmed in time by his subsequent maturity and success. They believed in him. He was their hope.

  When I went forward to receive my diploma, the applause for me was courteous, nothing more, despite the honors I had received, until a voice from the front row, Kitt’s, yelled out, “Yay, Harrison,” and her enthusiasm drew laughter from the crowd and an increase in the volume of applause. I wonder now, looking back, remembering, if I could have known then that one day we would meet in another place, married to other people, and fall in love. For that moment at Milford, all that I had witnessed such a short time before in the woods between the Bradley and Somerset estates seemed like nothing more than a nightmare from which I had awakened.

  Later, lunch was served under a yellow-and-white-striped tent set up in front of the Bradley Library, which was still under construction. Gerald pushed back his plate of lobster salad, gulped down his iced tea, and asked me if I would accompany him on a tour of the new building.

  “Be careful of that scaffolding,” he said. “You see, those windows on either side of the front door were Maureen’s idea. She told the architect that they would brighten up the entrance. Of course, she was right. Even the architect agrees now. Maureen’s a bright girl.”

  I did not reply, merely nodded. I knew he was making conversation until he got around to the subject at hand.

  “You seem quiet.”

  “I have always been quiet, Mr. Bradley. I have simply become quieter.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I am a participant in a cover-up. Because of what Mrs. Utley said on television—you must have heard Chief Quish speak for her when Gus Bailey questioned him. She said, ‘Somebody knows.’ I am that somebody.”

  “Who is this reporter, Gus Bailey? He persists in keeping alive a story that has run its natural course. He has suggested things about us, without calling us by name, because he knows I will sue if he does. He has made it appear that we have impeded the progress of the police. But he will stop. That much I know. Fuselli is doing a check on him. Where he’s from. What he’s about. Everyone has something to hide.”

  “Not Winifred Utley. She had nothing to hide,” I said.

  “Have you ever been to Europe, Harrison?” asked Gerald, shifting gears. He did not want to pursue my statement.

  “No.”

  “Never been to London or Paris?”

  “No.”

  “That should be part of every young man’s education, such a trip as that. A great learning experience. Wouldn’t you think so?”

  “I suppose.”

  He reached up into his inside suit pocket and pulled out two envelopes. “You will see that Sims Lord has drawn up the contract I spoke about some months ago. Any dealings through the years of your education you should take up directly with Sims. The tickets to Europe are a little graduation gift from Mrs. Bradley and me. You have been a wonderful friend to our son and to our family. You know that you will always be a part of us.”

  “You are sending me out of the country?”

  “I am sending you on the trip of a lifetime.”

  “For how long?”

  “Until university begins in September.”

  “Will Constant come, too?”

  “No.”

  “I suppose that would make it convenient for you,” I said.

  He paused before he spoke. “You’re a curious boy, Harrison,” he said. “Why in the world would my sending you on a trip to Europe, all expenses paid, the experience of a lifetime for a young man your age, make it convenient for me? Explain that one.”

  “You would then have only one thing to worry about: Constant. Instead of Constant and me. I am the wild card, am I not?”

  “Wild card?”

  “I suppose my proximity is a little unnerving during this period.”

  I expected his wrath, but that day Gerald h
eld his temper in check. There was not an inkling of it.

  “It is terrible that this suspicion has fallen on Constant. Terrible. The boy is innocent. His own mother saw him in bed at the time it happened.”

  “No, she didn’t,” I said.

  He ignored me.

  “There are terrible stories being spread about Constant. Buzzy Thrall, Piggy French, Eve Soby—that whole club crowd. They say that he roughed up Weegie Somerset last summer in Watch Hill. A lie. A terrible lie. Vicious. You know that. You were there.” He plowed on with his diatribe, not allowing me time either to agree or disagree with his statement. “Constant is a good boy. We all know that. Careless occasionally, yes. Bad, never.”

  “Careless,” I repeated, nodding at the word. “What an odd word for you to use.”

  He looked confused. “That’s all Constant is. Good, but careless.”

  “Have you ever heard of Gatsby, Mr. Bradley?”

  “Who?”

  “His friend Nick said, about the Buchanans, but he might have been talking about the Bradleys, ‘They were careless people.… They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.’ I feel that I have been entrapped by Constant’s carelessness.”

  Gerald appeared displeased. “It seems to me that this family is doing quite a lot for you,” he said. With a sweeping gesture he indicated the contract for my education and support and the airline tickets for a summer abroad.

  “It seems to me I am doing quite a lot for this family,” I replied. I felt braver than I had ever felt in Gerald Bradley’s presence. “I do not think you are getting the short end of the stick in this bargain, Mr. Bradley.”

  He ignored me. “I myself called on Mr. and Mrs. Utley. They, naturally, are distraught over their loss. I know what that is like. I remember all too well the night of Jerry’s accident, when we didn’t know if he would live or die. I think they are convinced that Constant did not see Winifred again once they left the club that night.”