THE RIGHT TIME TO DIE

by Jason Whitlock

  “The others,” he said.

  “I can’t, Ed,” Sara replied. “Not yet.” She moved to stand to her feet. Dojcsak pressed a heavy hand firmly to her shoulder, holding her in place. “I can’t, Ed, I think I’m going to puke.”

  “The others,” he commanded, his voice husky and unsure.

  “More of the same, Ed. It’s just more of the same. We don’t have to do this now.”

  “You’re a police officer, Sara. Sooner or later you will. If not now, later.” Dojcsak didn’t specify if he were referring to the trial or over the course of her career.

  “Ah, fuck it,” Sara said. “In for a penny…”

  She tossed the photographs from the remaining three envelopes haphazardly over the threadbare carpet. She moaned. The weight increased from the pressure of Dojcsak standing behind her, as if it were only she keeping him from collapsing; more of the same, Sara thought, but not quite the same. Now Missy appeared in the photographs with other boys, some recognizable to her as attending the local high, some as young as elementary. And other girls, children really, engaged in the same sophisticated level of sexual activity as Missy and her cousin: girls on girls, boys on boys. Scrawny, pale, hairless bodies, hollow eyes staring either at the camera or turning away, as if shamed.

  In some photos, girls had been captured en masse, while undressing in a female change room: the local swimming pool, elementary school, local high? Sara recalled what Burke had told her about a conversation he’d had with a teacher, a complaint leveled by a student but never confirmed about the possible goings on at the dance school of Marie Radigan.

  Sara was overcome, suddenly, with an unrestrained and excruciating sense of malice; toward Jordy Bitson, the Radigan’s, inexplicably toward Chris Burke and, predictably, toward all men in general.

  “I can’t take this, Ed.”

  Sara removed Dojcsak’s hand from her shoulder, standing finally to her feet. Dojcsak’s skin was greasy with sweat and the glow of hypertension, his breathing labored. What was he thinking, Sara wondered? That this might possibly be the tip of an iceberg? Did Dojcsak fancy himself the Captain of an impending, Titanic style disaster? Could he have foreseen, should he have foreseen the aberrant tendencies among the community’s children and adults? (Sara recalled the word of Joe Doeung.) More importantly in Sara’s mind, should she? Sara felt like his First Officer, sailing ignorantly and inexorably toward doom, toward that fucking iceberg full steam ahead.

  Sara wanted to scream, she wanted to rage, to claw her eyes from their sockets with her fingernails.

  In the end, she said, “It explains the condoms and the cash, Ed. Missy was flush with both. It isn’t a hobby with these kids, it’s a vocation. They’re being compensated. But by who?”

  Dojcsak pulled a handkerchief from his trousers, sopped the perspiration from his face and seemed to collect himself. “Call Christopher,” he told her. “Have him help you to bag and tag the bed sheets, the boys clothing, anything that might be relevant.” Dojcsak approached the twin bed on which Jordy slept. “She may have been here, Sara,” he said, pointing. “If so, with luck, she’ll have left a trace.”

  “We have the photos. Whatever else, it proves Jordy and Missy were having sex.”

  “We do have the photos,” said Dojcsak. “And the laptop. Now we need to know who took them.”

  “As important as who’s in them,” Sara said, agreeing. “I think it’s time to issue that BOLO, Ed, to haul in Jordy’s ass.”

  Dojcsak gave her a wry smile, shrugged his shoulders and said, “I agree. While we’re at it, let’s bring in Jeremy Radigan, too. He works with Missy’s grandfather. Maybe the two have more in common than a fondness for cars.”

  CHURCH FALLS, SOMETIME IN THE SEVENTIES

  AS PREDICTED by his father, that year Leland McMaster Junior returned home to Church Falls from the jungles of Vietnam in a pine box. In actuality, the casket was machine-tooled walnut, overlaid with a dull metal, standard-issue veneer finish. The military cargo plane transporting his remains arrived at Dover Air Force Base on a chilly afternoon two weeks prior to Christmas. Leland was not an officer, simply an enlisted man—or boy, depending on your perspective—and only one of several thousand others who had preceded him on that identical flight path home from overseas. There was no honor guard, no politicians in attendance, and by this time in the campaign no photo opportunity to greet him as his flag-draped casket made its way along a slow moving conveyer belt from inside the belly of the airplane to the tarmac, where it was received by employees of Church Falls’s Dodsworth and Brown funeral home. Art Dodsworth, surviving half of what for thirty-five years had been the Dodsworth and Brown partnership, assured Leland Senior that he personally would see to transporting the remains of his son safely home, at which point McMaster gave him a curious, if not an entirely quizzical, look.

  That year, Leland Junior became Church Falls’ first ever and only Bronze Star recipient, and the community’s only locally born combatant to be shipped home from Vietnam in a box of any kind. Especially galling to the boy’s mother was not that her eldest son had enlisted, but that he had willingly agreed to participate in the mission on which he eventually died.

  For Leland Senior, the death of his son was an opportunity to scrub the stain from the family reputation created when Leland had become suspect in the murder of Frances Stoops. As Jimmy Cromwell had told him that afternoon, it might not be possible to save your son, but it is right you should be able to salvage the family reputation.

  Leland was interred locally in a rather grand mausoleum in the non-denominational cemetery set aside by the municipality for such things. He did not rate Arlington National: Leland had neither status with, nor friends in the military; he had died before he was able to achieve either. Attending the funeral were family, friends and a handful of local veterans retired from service, some who had seen combat in both the Korean and the Second World Wars. As a community service, The Sentinel-Tribune dispatched a photographer.

  Ed Dojcsak arrived to the service alone, though when he saw Sidney Womack he crossed the frozen sod to be nearer his cousin twice removed, as if seeking shelter. Neither he nor Womack felt either responsibility or remorse in the fate of Leland McMaster, believing it to be a just and inevitable conclusion, though Sidney did experience a passing feeling of regret as the casket was lowered into the ground; Ed Dojcsak did not, passing or otherwise.

  Jimmy Cromwell’s sympathy for the McMaster family extended only so far as Leland Senior’s anguish might adversely impact his behavior toward Jimmy. In the years to come, Cromwell would be thankful that McMaster was much less an emotional man, than he was a pragmatic one. Friends of the dead boy gathered to be near the grave, consumed understandably by the singular consideration that thank God it was he, and not I.

  For the McMaster family, Christmas that year was a solemn affair. Helen refused to hang lights or to permit a tree. She resumed drinking after foregoing alcohol for the three-day period it took publicly to mourn the loss of her son, making up for lost time in the days following in order to bear up against the less than rigid protocol of private grief.

  When it appeared the following January Helen might either forget or chose to forego celebrating the upcoming birthday of her eldest daughter, Maggie, her husband committed himself wholeheartedly to ensuring for her a special day.

  The family of Shelly Hayden returned to Albany from where they originally came, and Mrs. Stoops and her husband became engaged in a protracted and bitter divorce and custody dispute over their surviving children, which to the surprise of no one—given the times—Mr. Stoops lost. He was required by a court award to relinquish to his wife custody of the children, the house and half his regular pay. Mrs. Stoops was satisfied with at least two thirds of the settlement.

  Andy Pardoe was accepted to attend college out of State, where he studied the principals of accounting in preparation for life as a CPA, while Keith Chislett enrolled in a pre-med program from which he would later flunk
out.

  Seamus Mcteer left Church Falls for New York City before the death of his friend and did not return for the funeral. He accepted a position with the New York Post as a junior copy editor, working the city desk. For six months, he refrained from indulging his passion for photography. In the summer of that year, Seamus established a relationship with a thirteen-year-old runaway from Iowa who he had befriended in Times Square. He purchased a new camera. For Seamus, it was a relationship by which thereafter, all others would be defined.

  Neal McMaster became somewhat more outgoing and socially aggressive after the death of his brother. Because of his physical appearance, he continued to be teased in school by both girls and boys. It was no surprise when the summer following the death of Frances Stoops, Neal was accused of sexual assault by the daughter of the publisher of the Sentinel-Tribune. Owing to the withdrawal the previous summer of all advertising in the Sentinel-Tribune by its largest client McMaster Chev-Olds, the newspaper had teetered on and off the edge of insolvency. Rather than indulge in a second go-round with Leland McMaster, Jack Fraser sold his home, packed up his belongings and with his family migrated south. He accepted a position in Orlando, Florida as a typesetter for the Sun-Times. Rumor had it a man named Walt was planning big things for the area.

  Neal worked for three years thereafter at the dealership, leaving home for Schenectady in seventy-four to take a position as a traveling salesmen with a manufacturer of synthetic adhesives. He could not bear to witness his mother’s decline or his father’s disappointment, though twice annually Neal did return home to monitor the status of his potential inheritance.

  That year, Jimmy Cromwell failed in his bid to become the youngest ever District Attorney of Warren County, though the strength of his showing and associated popular support suggested it was only a matter of time.

  Having gained something and lost nothing, Jimmy was satisfied with the outcome stemming from events of the previous summer. He had received limited though positive publicity from the combined indictment and subsequent discharge of Drew Bitson. On this issue, the liberal press had noted his steadfastness in safeguarding the black defendant’s civil rights. Thankfully, on the subject of Bitson’s release, the conservative press had remained mute.

  Life was not yet perfect for Jimmy Cromwell, though with marriage to the right woman it could be. That happened in the autumn, over the long Thanksgiving weekend in November when Cromwell married a county court stenographer whom he had been dating off and on for months. Ida Pruitt wouldn’t give Jimmy a heart attack in bed, but neither would she embarrass him out of it.

  That summer, Roots Radigan was promoted to the position of Service Manager in the employ of McMaster Chev-Olds. He maintained contact with Seamus Mcteer throughout Seamus’ exile in New York City and after Seamus returned upstate.

  Ed Dojcsak joined the Church Falls police as a junior deputy, much to the relief of both his mother and dad.

  “Now that you’re a cop, let somebody else beat up on you,” his father told him only half jokingly when Ed had returned home with his revolver and his badge. Shortly thereafter, as if seemingly in exchange, Dojcsak began paying to his parents monthly room and board. Within months, his father was dead.

  Sidney and Rebecca Womack purchased a previously owned conversion van, which Sid refurbished. The summer following the murder, Sidney and his family enjoyed an extended driving vacation, traveling in the van along the central California Coast, stopping in roadside motels when they could afford, camping under the stars when they couldn’t.

  Rather than helping to reclaim Sidney’s enthusiasm for work, images of the rugged Pacific coastline and towering redwood forest served only to take his mind further from it. Increasingly, Womack delegated responsibility to Ed Dojcsak, more so perhaps than a man of Dojcsak’s limited experience and age should be entitled.

  Increasingly that summer, travelers opted to exit into Church Falls off the Interstate, from the recently constructed by-pass three miles outside of town. The community expanded and though the indigenous population remained relatively static, in summer the number of transients and tourists swelled, making it seem to most like prosperity.

  A motel was constructed off the interstate and a trailer park converted from an abandoned farmer’s field to accommodate weekend campers. After the death of Leland McMaster Junior, there were no additional killings of local school girls in Church Falls, though the same could not be said for those visitors to the surrounding counties who found themselves returning home less a daughter, or perhaps two.

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  HENRY BAUER’S DAY began poorly. By two o’clock that afternoon, just as he was beginning to imagine it couldn’t get worse, Ed Dojcsak telephoned, after which, for Henry, it became intolerable.

  That morning Henry had been to visit with a thirty-eight year old mother of three young children; she was dying of breast cancer. Neither radical surgery nor the chemo and radiation therapy prescribed to her by an attending oncologist had had the slightest impact in either improving or prolonging her life. In many ways, thought Bauer, it made it worse, making her weak, sick and—God help him for even thinking it—ugly, like Yoda the Jedi Master in an episode of Star Wars.

  Afterward, he spoke with the parents of a nine-year-old daughter very likely suffering from leukemia. The results were not yet conclusive and Bauer was not yet in a position to offer a final prognosis, but he feared they could see the hopelessness in his eyes.

  Later, he made time for a once vibrant seventy-six year old grandmother of twelve who had broken her hip while out walking with the youngest of the brood. She had literally tripped over a crack in the sidewalk. “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back,” she had cackled in his ear on his last visit.

  Combined with a visit to the home of Luba Dojcsak, by noon Henry was seriously thinking of calling it a day.

  “She requires acute care, Rena,” he said only moments after checking in on his patient. “You can’t provide it here. She needs to be hospitalized.”

  “When the time comes, Henry, she’ll die at home.”

  “Why are you being so bloody obstinate?”

  “I didn’t care for her all these years just to ship her off when times get tough. How long has she got? A week? Ten days? Maybe a month or two?” She turned from him. “Nothing compared to what we’ve already been through.”

  The house appeared tidy, but reeked of cigarette smoke. So Ed had lied; he hadn’t quit smoking, or even cut down.

  “You remind me of your husband, Rena. Together, the two of you could out-martyr Mother Teresa herself.”

  Afterward, sitting in his office, Bauer received a call from Ed Dojcsak. Thinking it was about his dust-up with Rena, he began by offering an apology. He said, “I’m sorry, I may have been out of line.”

  “What are you talking about?” Dojcsak replied.

  “Rena didn’t say?”

  “I haven’t spoken to Rena, Henry.”

  “Then what is this about?”

  Dojcsak proceeded to recount to Henry the material uncovered in the home of Jordy Bitson: the photographs, the videocassettes and cash. He was having sex with his cousin, among others, and in addition to leading a ring of local vandals and dealing drugs, it appeared now Jordy was responsible for soliciting participants in what was increasingly beginning to look like a kiddy porn-for-profit operation.

  “He wasn’t sophisticated enough to pull this off himself, Henry. He had help. You admitted to me the girl was suffering from AIDS.”

  “HIV,” replied Henry, as if it made a difference.

  “There will be others, perhaps there already are. I’m not concerned about the children right now.”

  Bauer understood Dojcsak’s implication.

  “What is it you’re asking from me, Ed?”

  “I want to know if you’re treating an adult, any adult, for the same condition. And to hell with patient-doctor confidentiality; you’ll tell me, Henry, and you’ll tell me without making
a fuss.”

  Over the line Bauer was quiet. Of course he would tell Dojcsak what he needed to know. His silence was not from a concern over ethical or professional considerations, but from an overwhelming sense of having violated his Oath to prescribe regimen for the good of his patients according to his ability and his judgment and never do harm to anyone. As a physician, Henry Bauer had failed Missy Bitson miserably. As a fellow human, he had failed her most miserably.

  “Leland McMaster.”

  (In his office, Dojcsak recoiled, holding the telephone from his ear as if it were electrically charged. Images of his young friend came to mind. He and Lee at a point overlooking the water where the body of Shelly Hayden was found floating face up in the river. Lee accusing him of treachery, of betraying a friendship that to the heir to the McMaster good fortune was never more than one of convenience; Lee standing on the railway platform his final day in Church Falls, before being shipped off to Vietnam. But mostly, Dojcsak recalled the painful memory of Lee McMaster Junior rutting with Frances Stoops and his confusion upon seeing the photo at being angry, more than aroused. Ed Dojcsak did not carry guilt at having sent Leland McMaster off to Vietnam to be shipped home later in a pine box, but now, forty years later, thinking of the boy’s father, Dojcsak did experience an inkling of regret.)