THE RIGHT TIME TO DIE

by Jason Whitlock

  Dorothy and Trinity Van Duesen had placed the telephone on call forward and Sara was thankful she would not be disrupted by the obligation to answer incoming calls. Prior to beginning her report, Sara placed a call to Evelyn Bitson, the estranged daughter of Maggie and Eugene and the victim’s sister. She obtained the telephone number from directory assistance, assuming that after so many years Maggie would not recall or have the number conveniently at hand. Besides, as unlikely as it might be, she didn’t want mother to warn daughter of an impending call from the police. For all Sara’s trouble, the call went unanswered. She left a recorded message asking that Evelyn return the call as soon as possible. Fearing she might not yet be aware of her sister’s death, Sara did not say why Evelyn should agree to do so.

  Sara telephoned Rena Dojcsak, to inquire on the condition of Luba.

  “You know,” Rena said. “Holding her own.”

  Rena herself inquired as to the status of the investigation.

  “You know,” replied Sara. “Holding our own.”

  Wanting to gossip, Rena admitted to Sara a concern this latest killing might be related to events in the past, though how, she didn’t know.

  “What are you talking about?” Sara asked.

  “Something my psychic said, this afternoon.”

  “Angelique.” Sara made it sound dismissive.

  “Don’t be so practical, Sara; you’re too young. This isn’t the first time young girls have gone missing, or turned up dead.” Then, seeming to hedge her bets, “But if Ed didn’t say, it may not be relevant, though he’s such a skeptic anyway. You won’t tell him I said, will you?”

  “That he’s a skeptic?”

  “No; that I spoke to Angelique.”

  After hanging up, on her desk blotter, Sara reluctantly scribbled a reminder to question Ed, or perhaps—so as not to cause friction between husband and wife—to research archived police files on her own for any evidence of a connection to the past.

  It was late; Sara next telephoned the Albany field office of the FBI, requesting to speak with Agent Joe Dog. Joe Dog was actually Joe Doeung, pronounced dung, hence Joe preferring to be known as Dog. Joe was an American of South Korean heritage with whom Sara had attended college. Fluent in his mother tongue in addition to both Mandarin and Cantonese, and with a Mensa level IQ, Sara did not resent his intelligence or his accomplishments, simply worried that against such achievement her chances of acceptance into the academy at Quantico were slim.

  As she expected, Joe was working late. In perfect English, he said, “I was going to call.”

  “You have something for me?” asked Sara, straightening in her chair. “How could you? I only sent the email this afternoon. Why call? Is it important?”

  Sara and Joe communicated regularly over the Internet, either through text or via email. Mostly it was personal, occasionally professional, as at lunch when Sara sent Joe a text outlining preliminary details of the Missy Bitson investigation.

  “To hear your voice, Sara. I’ve told you many times; I’d leave my wife and kids for you.”

  “That’s flattering, Joe; you have no wife or kids.”

  Joe Dog laughed. “Well, if I did, I would. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “Seriously,” Sara said, “what have you got?”

  Sara sensed more than heard the shuffle of paper over the line. Dog was collecting either information or his wits.

  “Recently,” he began, “we—the Albany Field Office—busted a child porn ring operating out of Jamestown. It was a cross-border initiative of the agency, the U.S. Postal Service and the Canadian RCMP.”

  Police had charged, Doeung went on to explain, ten adults who had been producing and trading online videos depicting the sexual abuse and beatings of children as young as four years old, some of them their own. The ring spanned seven States, including two Canadian provinces, and was aggressively promoted using the Internet. The investigation had taken two years and began when authorities were tipped off to the network after an assistant school principal was arrested in Montreal and—for the second time—charged with conspiracy to produce and to distribute the illicit material.

  “We’ll issue a press release by Friday, but for now distribute this information only on a need to know basis. By the weekend, you should see details appear over the wire. Anyway,” Joe continued, “your email got me thinking. This industry is incestuous, Sara. Demand is high and widespread. The Internet guarantees a certain sense of anonymity, but for obvious reasons production and distribution is restricted, in more ways than one. Most producers distribute what they produce, and most distributors produce what they sell. On the supply side, it’s a relatively small community. Each seems to know of the other. Much of it is imported, especially from Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Bloc Sates, but more than we care to admit is produced right here in the good old US of A. Asia could potentially be a huge problem for us, but strangely—or thankfully—American consumers aren’t partial to young, Asian girls. I’ve given that some thought, you know, and written it off to the Vietnam experience. Most Vets had their fill of underage Asian sex, overseas, during their tours of duty. Possibly, it doesn’t carry the same cache.”

  Sara asked, “What has this to do with me, or my murder?” She wondered at his almost casual use of the word community and all that it implied.

  “Nothing. Perhaps. But while going through the cached Internet files of a bank security guard arrested in Mineola, New York, we discovered a link from his computer to Google maps. We recalled that link. It detailed driving instructions upstate: specifically to Lake George. It may have been a random hit, Sara. It may be purely coincidental. Maybe he was contemplating a fishing expedition up north. Who knows? Your call got me thinking; we don’t bust people like this without playing a hunch or two, a fishing expedition of our own. It warrants a look-see.”

  “By the F.B.I?” Sara suppressed visions of Agents Scully and Mulder descending by helicopter on her small community.

  “No, no,” he said, “We don’t have the manpower.” Then, “Not yet.”

  “What do you need from me?” she asked.

  “I’ll give you the name, address and telephone number of our perp. See if it matches anything or anyone you have on file, anything from a traffic ticket to a meter violation. Check the name against others in your community. Subpoena Verizon to supply you with the records of all mobile communication that originated from your area over the last two years, terminating in Mineola. It won’t be easy, but it’s a first step.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. With nothing specific, you can’t do much more.” Joe paused then said, “Sara, killing is a marked and aberrant escalation in the behavioral pattern of a pedophile. For them, it’s usually about sex, infatuation and, as twisted as it may seem, even love sometimes. They don’t see predator when they see themselves in the mirror, they see savior. In their own demented way, of course,” he qualified.

  “What are you saying, Joe?”

  “They don’t often kill, Sara, but when they do it’s rarely, if ever, for the final or only time.”

  “Educate me, Joe; I work a small town. Is it really as bad as all that?”

  According to Joe, it was. “There are more than 100,000 substantiated, that’s substantiated as opposed to reported, occurrences of child sexual abuse in this country each year. Six of ten thousand children attending daycare facilities are sexually abused and a parent, stepparent, or a sibling in the home will molest nine of ten thousand. We have no way of knowing, but the number of actual unreported occurrences nation-wide may be three to four times that high, close to half a million. It’s estimated that there are currently more than sixty million living Americans that as children have suffered some form of sexual mistreatment. Those numbers don’t begin to recognize the tens of thousands of ten to fifteen-year-old runaways that whore themselves out to keep from starving or freezing to death in the streets. There’s a lot of dysfunction out there, Sara.”

  “What
are you doing about it?”

  Joe scoffed. “Local authorities are under funded. Since 9/11 our mandate has been almost exclusively to assess domestic threats from abroad, not from at home, literally. We’re so preoccupied with Al Qaeda and ISIS; we haven’t got time to be worried over mom and pop. To my way of thinking, it’s getting worse.”

  Five minutes later, they terminated the conversation. It was going on seven and Sara was more dispirited than hungry. Fearing that either Dojcsak or Burke might arrive to sleep off a drunk before returning home, she quickly pecked out four pages of notes on her computer detailing the day’s activities. With misgiving, Sara dropped her report on the desk of Ed Dojcsak, lamenting the post mortem report and the testimony of Jenny, feeling they may as well brand the dead girl with a Scarlet Letter and have done with the investigation.

  Perhaps, Sara hoped, Mandy might provide insight that would help either to contradict, or at least to explain, Missy’s aberrant behavior. According to a portrait of the girl now emerging, could it be described as anything less? Sara locked the door to the station before leaving, finally, to see Mandy.

  CHURCH FALLS, SOMETIME IN THE SEVENTIES

  ROOTS RADIGAN SAT on the bed, counting cash rapidly onto the colorless spread while Leland McMaster Junior sat in a chair opposite, trying, but failing, to keep pace with the speed of Radigan’s fingers. In only a few moments and as if by some sleight of hand, Radigan had amassed four stacks of banknotes: twenties, tens, fives and a more substantial mountain of weathered single dollar bills. Completing his tally, Radigan pulled a dozen from each stack, creating two more for a total of six stacks in all. He then removed the original (and significantly larger) four stacks from the spread, combined them, folded them, and secured the bills with a rubber band before placing them in a front pocket of his tight jeans. The packet offset and complimented the already pronounced bulge between his thighs, thought Roots. He then passed one of the remaining stacks to McMaster.

  Seamus Mcteer ignored the exchange, preoccupied instead with trying to force a cloud of cigarette smoke from the open bedroom window with a printed cotton bed sheet. He said, “You know you’re not supposed to smoke.” He waved frantically.

  “That’s it?” said Leland to Roots.

  “You were expecting?” said Roots to Leland, raising his hands in a gesture of capitulation.

  Leland said, “More.”

  “If my mother finds out you’re smoking in here,” said Seamus, “you’ll be out on your ass.”

  “More, as in how much more, Lee? I carry the expenses.”

  Leland said, “Such as they are. A dollar’s worth of film, some toner, and some flash.”

  “I’ll never get rid of the smell,” complained Seamus. “Never. My mother will notice; my father will take it out on me.”

  “You’re minimizing my contribution, Lee,” Radigan said. “After all, without my contacts, your share would be an awful lot less.” Radigan pulled himself from the bed, hovering.

  Leland stiffened. He was big, certainly bigger than Roots Radigan. In the right circumstances, he could be tough. But Radigan was mean, and as Leland was only too aware, mean beat tough—and big—every time, like some twisted real-life equivalent of the game Paper-Rocks.

  Lee smoked now, taking time to consider his response. What had begun originally as a lark, had with the participation of Jeremy Radigan escalated dramatically over the months, until it seemed now, to Leland, like an obligation, implied if not explicitly stated. At Mcteer’s urging, Leland had agreed to participate in a scheme to obtain photos of Lee and young girls involved, mostly, in heavy petting; Lee cupping an exposed tit or two, and, if he were lucky, more. Leland recalled one time having forced Frances Stoops’ blue jeans down below her knees, and her panties, mounting her like a dog before erupting unceremoniously only moments after. Though Seamus denied having been able to obtain a clear shot, with the death of Frances, Leland worried obsessively, compulsively, and non-stop, knowing maybe Seamus had and maybe the photo would find its way to the authorities. That Drew Bitson had been charged in the killing didn’t mean necessarily that he would be convicted. Not according to Leland’s dad.

  “I’m just saying,” Leland answered finally. Seamus grunted, dropping his weary arms to his side only momentarily before resuming his crusade. “It seems like a lot of work for not much return. And risk,” he added, as if to emphasize his point.

  “Risk? You get to shove your fingers up every pussy in town. You call that risk? You must be queer.” Roots reached for his cigarettes, offered to McMaster and lighted for both. “Like my old man used to say to me, Lee: ‘Find something you love, boy, and turn it into a vocation’. You’re getting paid for something you’d be doing anyway. Enough whining. I think we should make like ostriches and keep our heads buried in the sand for a while. Womack makes me nervous, fat fuck. I don’t trust him. He wants to see the nigger walk.”

  Relieved, though not necessarily pleased, for the discussion to move in a different direction, Leland said, “Dojcsak has me covered.”

  “I don’t trust Dojcsak, neither; Dojcsak is a homo.”

  “Ed’s okay,” said Seamus.

  “He’s Womack’s cousin,” said Roots.

  “How do you know that?” asked Leland.

  “I make it my business to know everything, Lee; everything. It’s why I pay myself the big bucks.”

  Leland didn’t argue. Instead he said, “Maybe we should lay up a while.”

  “I said make like ostriches and hide, Lee, not like chickens and run.”

  Radigan returned to the bed. He propped a pillow against the headboard, removed his shoes, raised his feet and reclined. Though he wouldn’t admit, Roots was tempted to heed the young man’s advice; hop into his Bel Air, point the hood ornament northward and keep on truckin’ till he crossed the state line into Quebec. “How much more can one man take?” he asked of himself. He’d been forced—reluctantly—to leave Mineola, his birthplace, for much the same reason he was now considering leaving here, his adopted birthplace. How many birthplaces, adopted or otherwise, can one man be expected to have before being considered itinerant, by others, but more importantly by his own self? A young girl dies. Big deal. Suddenly the authorities begin rousting every red-blooded man who’s ever even opened a dirty magazine, as if whacking off is a first step somehow, to committing a capital crime. Jeremy was nervous. Anxiety gripped his rib cage, making it difficult to breathe. True, the black boy had been charged in the murder, but Roots knew well enough it didn’t mean, necessarily, that he’d be convicted.

  “Take your money, Seamus,” he said now, scattering the remaining cash to the floor from the bed with a push of his stocking foot, “before Lee and I split it between us.”

  …

  Ed Dojcsak watched as a half hour later Leland and Jeremy stepped from the home of Seamus Mcteer. Radigan was older than Lee—early-twenties, Dojcsak guessed—scruffy and scrawny; not the type with whom he would expect his more sophisticated friend to associate. With his rotted teeth, pitted skin and crotch pressed tight against his faded jeans, Radigan looked like a scumbag, a first-class degenerate. They worked together at the dealership, Dojcsak knew, side-by-side in the service bay, but Ed wasn’t convinced the connection was adequate to explain the relationship.

  The day was hot. At the second level window across the street, Dojcsak watched Seamus resume his frantic flapping of the colorful bed sheet. Did Leland and Radigan share a common interest? And if so, what: the dirty pictures available through Seamus? Dojcsak recalled the image of a plump and hairy girl—hairy crotch, hairy legs, hairy pits—laying in the grass, on her back, legs spread, expression bored, as if she knew the simple act of looking labeled you a queer. Seamus had allowed Dojcsak a complimentary preview of the photograph on the understanding subsequent viewings would incur a nominal charge.

  “For my effort,” Seamus had explained.

  After that, Dojcsak expressed no further interest. He considered the images a wan de
piction of what he viewed as the primal urge. Fortunately for Seamus, he had no need to rely on the patronage of Ed Dojcsak for the success of his venture.

  Dojcsak discarded his cigarette in the gutter, watching Radigan and McMaster depart. He crossed the street to Seamus’ home, letting himself through the front door without knocking. Perhaps he had been hasty in dismissing his greater interest to Seamus, and perhaps, today, he would see what he should see.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  WHILE SARA TRAVELED the short distance to the Bitson home that evening, Jeremy Radigan met with Seamus Mcteer at a rest area located two miles outside of Church Falls, off the southbound lanes of the I-87. It was convenient to both, yet remote; the least likely of all places to encounter a local, claimed Mcteer. (Radigan argued that their presence there would be all the more telling if they had.)