A Season in Purgatory

by Dominick Dunne

  “So that’s where the money came from,” she said, finally. “For the year in Europe and the four years at Brown.”

  “Yes. Hush money, I suppose you could call it.”

  “You will not come out of this unscathed, you know.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I’m hungry, Dad,” said Timmy, coming over to where his parents were talking.

  “I’m hungry,” said Charlie, following his brother.

  “Your father will take you out, boys. Get your coats,” said Claire. She looked at Harrison. “I always knew there was something. I always said there was a secret in your life.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I thought it was further back, though.”

  “What do you mean, further back?”

  “From an earlier period. I have always found it odd that you have never mentioned your parents to me, other than to say they were murdered. Never once have you talked to me about them. No reminiscences, no childhood memories. It’s not as if they died when you were four, and your memory of them is dimmed by time. You were what? Sixteen? Seventeen? Do you ever think of them? Did you ever mourn for them? Do you ever go to their graves? You didn’t come back from Europe for the trial of the men who killed them. I always thought that was strange. You have always seemed to me, somehow, incomplete.”

  He looked at his wife and nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. I think the reason I hated Jerry Bradley so much, almost from the first night I met him, at dinner with the Bradley family in Scarborough Hill after Constant had been expelled, was that the mocking tone he used when speaking to me reminded me of the way my father had always spoken to me. My father berated me, mocked me, for being a sissy. I can say that word now, and even smile saying it, but it was for me the most painful word in the vocabulary when I was a child. It was more painful because he knew it was painful. He was a reasonable man in many ways, but I enraged him. I was not what he wanted for an only son. He beat me. He beat me with leather belts, or wooden hangers, and when the hangers broke, as they often did, he went back to the closet and got another and continued with the beating. My legs and ass were often red with welts. I realize now he was trying to beat what he thought of as my sin out of me. No, I never have been to his grave.”

  Claire looked at him. “Oh, Harrison,” she said. For a moment, they stared at each other.

  “Here, help me,” said Charlie, handing Harrison his coat.

  Harrison helped his son into the left arm and then into the right arm and then buttoned the coat. Claire, doing the same with Timmy’s coat, watched Harrison.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  He told her.

  “Does Kitt know?”

  “No.”

  “Does anyone know?”

  “Only you.”

  “How curious I should be the one you tell.”

  “Oh, I don’t think it’s curious, Claire.”

  “It’s called burning all your bridges, what you’re going to do. You know that, don’t you, Harrison?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Aren’t you afraid?”

  “Afraid? Of what?”

  “Of what they can do to you. They’re pretty powerful.”

  “They’ve already tried to drown me.”

  * * *

  Two days later, there was a small item in the Times saying that the body of an unidentified swimmer had washed up on the beach in Shinnecock Creek near Hampton Bays, New York. The six-foot-one-inch dark-haired white male was clad in a wet suit. He appeared to be in his early to mid-forties. As of that time, no one had come forward to claim the body.

  “You wished to see me, Mr. Jerry?” asked Charlie, the chauffeur, coming into the loggia.

  “Yes, Charlie.”

  “Are you going into the city? You want me to drive you?”

  “No, Charlie.”

  “Do you want me to take things over to the hospital for Mr. B.?” asked Charlie.

  “No, Charlie. Sit down. There, on the bamboo chair. It doesn’t look comfortable, but it is. You know Sally Steers wouldn’t let one of Ma’s guests sit on an uncomfortable chair.”

  Charlie, suddenly nervous, smiled.

  “How many years have you been with us now, Charlie?”

  “Oh, let me see, twenty-five, twenty-six, like that, I don’t remember exactly. You’re not thinking of retiring me, are you, Mr. Jerry? I’m still fit, you know, as fit as I was when I came here to be with the family.”

  “No, no, of course not, Charlie. We wouldn’t ever retire you. My father’s going to need you more than ever when he comes home from the hospital. What I wanted to discuss was something of a different nature. A man has washed ashore in the Shinnecock Creek near Hampton Bays. A swimmer. His body has been taken to the medical examiner’s office in Hauppauge and is now in the morgue there. Do you know Hauppauge, Charlie?”

  “I’m not sure I do.”

  “It’s thirty miles west of Southampton.”

  “Oh, right, yes, I know Hauppauge.”

  “I have reason to believe the body is that of Johnny Fuselli,” said Jerry.

  “Johnny! No!” said Charlie, shocked.

  “I fear so. He went swimming a few days ago, and no one has seen him since. What I’d like you to do, Charlie, is claim the body, if it is indeed Johnny, have it sent to the local funeral home in Hauppauge, and make whatever arrangements have to be made for cremation.”

  “Shouldn’t you be the one doing that, not me, Mr. Jerry?” asked Charlie. “I’m only the chauffeur here.”

  “Under normal circumstances, yes, Charlie, but with the publicity in the papers from Constant’s automobile accident and my father’s stroke, there seems to be enough attention on our family. We thought, my brothers and I, that you could do this and attract no attention.”

  “It could be pricey, you know, for the cremation and all.”

  “Yes, it could. I think you will find there is sufficient cash in this envelope to cover whatever expenses there are. Thank you, Charlie.”

  That night Harrison Burns stood at a pay phone at the corner of Park Avenue and Sixty-second Street on the Upper East Side of New York and dialed a number.

  “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Utley?”

  “Yes? Who is it?”

  “This is Harrison Burns.”

  “Oh, Harrison,” she said. She spoke in a friendly tone. “How strange you should call right now. I’ve just been reading your article on Esme Bland and Dwane Lonergan. What a story.”

  “Yes.”

  “I adored that woman in Arizona who raises cattle.”

  “Maxine.”

  “Yes. This is a rare piece for you.”

  “Rare? How?”

  “A crime without villains.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Your anger was missing.”

  “Yes, I suppose it was. But it has returned. I would like to invite myself for a cup of tea, or a glass of water, or whatever you have to serve.”

  “Yes, of course. When?”

  “I’m standing at a pay phone outside your building. I was thinking of right now.”

  When Harrison got off the elevator on her floor, Luanne Utley was standing in the entry hall, the apartment door opened behind her, waiting for him. For a moment they stared at each other. She understood this was not a social call.

  “Come in, Harrison,” she said.

  PART THREE

  1993

  Harrison Burns

  15

  How can I describe to you the furor that the arrest of Constant Bradley caused? What was it? His congressional background? His gubernatorial aspirations? His famous family? His multimillionaire father? His glamour? His racy reputation? His extraordinary good looks? It’s anyone’s guess. All of them together, probably. Who can ever forget the photograph of him, with a marshal on each side, arriving at the police station in Scarborough Hill, Connecticut, to turn himself in? It is not true that he was handcuffed, as several papers claim
ed. He was not. It was a condition, arrived at beforehand, that if he came to the police station on his own no handcuffs would be put on him. He was fingerprinted. Bail was set at a million dollars and paid immediately. And he left, waving, smiling sadly but affably at the barrage of cameras outside the police station. On the advice of counsel, he made no statement, only a charming helpless gesture. Then he entered the family station wagon and was whisked away.

  But, of course, you must remember all of that. It was the story of the night on all three networks and CNN. It was on the front page of every newspaper the next morning, even the Times. But, as most people know, the carrying-out of justice is a very slow process. As the weeks and months went on, the story became relegated to the sort of media known to some as tabloid and to others as trash. Several members of the Bradley family asked for police protection from the hordes of reporters, photographers, and cameramen who blocked their driveways, tied up their telephones, and provoked several ugly incidents. One photographer, on a cherry picker, managed to get close enough to a second-floor window of the Bradley house to get a picture of Gerald Bradley being fed his soup by Sis Malloy. The photograph of the pathetic and helpless man appeared in papers across the country, and cries of outrage were heard on all sides. Once more, the members of the media were referred to as vultures. Other principals in the case, like Luanne Utley and me, went into hiding, separately, refusing to be interviewed, declining to participate in the circus atmosphere, even though it was I who had caused that atmosphere.

  I have always enjoyed writing about people. People have always talked to me, even people who were reluctant to be interviewed. Claire has said to me on more than one occasion that I became involved in their lives as a way of not dealing with my own. Perhaps. Now the shoe was on the other foot. With the decision I made to come forward and tell what I knew about Constant Bradley, a great deal of attention came my way. Photographs of me appeared in all the newspapers. I discovered very quickly, and the discovery was no surprise to me, that I did not enjoy being written about. Poor Claire. How she loathed it, especially when a picture of her and the twins appeared in the National Enquirer. She left New York and rented a house in a remote village in Connecticut, doing her editing at home. Much of what was written about me was unfavorable. There was a perception, circulated by the family, that I had done it for the reward money. The word betrayer was used to describe me.

  * * *

  There have been times, more often than I care to remember, when I have said to myself, “What have I done? What have I brought about?” Have I ever doubted the wisdom of my late-night visit to the apartment of Luanne Utley in May of 1990 and the confessional hours that followed? Oh, yes. Often I have awakened in the middle of the night, soaked with sweat, heart beating madly, screaming, “What have I done?” If I had it to do over again, would I do what I did? I would like to say, “Oh, yes, yes, yes,” but, in truth, I wonder.

  Would not my life have been easier if I had followed my instincts and not gone to Southampton that fateful weekend, during which I might have ended up drowned instead of Johnny Fuselli? Oh, yes. But now, thinking back, I realize that the process was set in motion for me on the night in New York at Borsalino’s restaurant when I encountered Mrs. Utley again after so many years. Thoughts long dormant began to awaken, even though I resisted the stirrings. Then, in Maine, at the Bee and Thistle Inn, the process accelerated when I ran into Kitt Bradley, Constant’s image, and became her lover. I did not want to meet with Gerald Bradley at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York, but I allowed myself to be talked into doing something I did not want to do. That day, Fruity Suarez appeared, like an apparition, standing all in gray at the bottom of the steps, to warn me not to take the road I was about to take. He understood, in Miss Garbo’s bar, that I was being sucked into a vortex. How often I have thought of his words: “Stay away from them. All of them. They will destroy you. What is there about that family that you find so irresistible, Harry?” I did not want to go to Southampton. Everything told me not to, but again I allowed myself to be talked into doing something I did not want to do. I did not want to see Constant again. I have never been able to totally erase from my mind the picture of that beautiful person using the tail of his white Brooks Brothers shirt to wipe Winifred Utley’s blood and his fingerprints off the bat with which he had just killed her.

  I have come to believe there is a plan for each life, and these encounters were part of the plan—beyond my ability to halt—to bring me to this day. You see, I knew, or I think I knew, even before Johnny Fuselli tried to drown me, that I was going to do what I have done. The weight on my soul was too great.

  I saw Kitt one more time after our parting in Southampton. I could not, after what had happened between us, go through with what I was about to do without letting her know of my intentions. I couldn’t do that to her. I had by then been to see Luanne Utley. I had also been to see Captain Riordan, now reared. From him I learned what the next steps would have to be. I left a message on her machine, saying it was important that I see her on a most urgent matter. She left a breezy message on mine: “Come to lunch Tuesday. Tuna fish.” With Bridey always in her life, she had never learned to cook, but she often bragged about her tuna fish casserole, which she called her one culinary accomplishment.

  Our meeting was brief. She lived in a small but stylish suite of rooms, with its own kitchen, in the Rhinelander Hotel. The Rhinelander was, is, an elegant place on the Upper East Side of New York where many fashionable women live between marriages. I had been there during our affair, but she had preferred coming to my Spartan apartment for our afternoon meetings. “It’s more erotic,” she had said more than once. She liked arriving before me and changing the sheets and putting the wine in the refrigerator and arranging flowers she bought at a Korean market on the corner. She hated my one vase. “Tacky,” she said. She hated my two glasses. “Tackier,” she said. She bought a new vase and two new glasses. Sometimes, when I unlocked the door of my apartment, she was already undressed, prepared for what she called the frolic to follow, wearing only my dressing gown. As long as I had known her, she could make me laugh. I missed her.

  She answered the door that Tuesday, the tuna fish Tuesday, and then stepped back, watching me. She was wearing the glasses she sometimes wore when she read, but she pulled them off and held them in her hand as she smiled nervously, in the way that lovers do when they meet again after their first fight. I entered. I stood inside her door, looking at her looking at me. I believe, to my shame, that she thought the urgency of my call to her had had to do with sexual desire. A quickie, which she would have gone through with if that had been my intention. She had been to the hairdresser. She was dressed as if for lunch at “21.” The suit, the pearls, the gold pin. Behind her, I could see that a table was set for two, with plates and glasses and silver and napkins and a bottle of wine. The bottle was open, and she had poured herself a glass, perhaps even two. From the kitchen, I could smell her tuna fish casserole.

  “Hello,” she said. Her voice was almost a whisper.

  “Hello, Kitt.”

  “Oh, Harrison. I was so excited when I heard from you. I couldn’t stop thinking that you were coming. I only stayed for two acts of the opera last night and left. I wanted everything to be perfect today. How do I look?”

  “Kitt, I’m not going to stay. You must listen to me. You must let me talk. You must not interrupt me. Something terrible is going to happen, and I cannot bear that you find it out from someone other than me, as I am the one who is responsible. Constant is going to be arrested for the murder of Winifred Utley in 1973. No, no, don’t disagree with me. I was there that night. I saw. I helped him carry her body from the place where he killed her to the place where she was found under the pine tree. Your father knew. All your brothers knew. Your mother didn’t, of course. Nor any of your sisters. I could not live with this secret another moment. That is why Johnny Fuselli tried to drown me. I have gone to the police in Scarborough Hill and told everythi
ng I know. That’s it. That’s all I have to say. I am sorry to hurt you like this, and your mother. I loved you, Kitt. I want you to know that. But I had to do what I have done.”

  She stared at me, unbelieving. Her face looked as if I had struck her. Her mouth hung slack. Then, as if her chin were too heavy for her face, her head fell forward to her chest. Her glasses dropped out of her hand. As she turned to walk to a chair, she stepped on her glasses with her high heel and broke a lens. Uncaring, she fell into the chair. Her hands went to her face and covered it. Then I turned, opened the door, and left her. Outside her door, in the hall of the Rhinelander Hotel, I could hear a moan coming from her, like a lamentation for the dead. I wanted to go back. I wanted to tell her I was sorry for having inflicted pain on her. I didn’t. I walked quickly to the elevator and pushed the Down button.

  It is not uncommon for crazies to confess to crimes they did not commit, or for people to pretend that they have knowledge of a crime that they do not have. For that reason, the police always withhold some information from the media, something vital, that only the killer could know, or someone who has actually witnessed the killing. Look back at those old newspapers from 1973. You will read that Winifred Utley was wearing a pink party dress, that her white panties were on, and that she had not been raped. What I knew was that her panties were down by her ankles. I had seen that when I lifted her. I had seen her pubic hair. It was the one bit of information I needed to establish my credibility. They already knew my whereabouts that night. It was in the files. What I suspected but did not actually know was that rape had been the intention, but penetration had not taken place. I had a theory about Constant, but I kept that to myself.

  Captain Riordan came with me on that day. Although retired, he had never been able to forget the case, about which he had always had very strong suspicions. Through the years, he had checked in with Luanne Utley several times a year and had established a warm relationship with her. Things had happened after I had gone to Europe that I knew nothing about. Captain Riordan told me that a cardinal and several priests had interceded for the family. He told me that the cardinal had told Gerald in front of him that he should not let Constant submit to certain tests that Riordan wanted. He said they would do more harm than good, although what that meant no one knew, but no one was about to question a cardinal, and the cardinal knew that.