THE RIGHT TIME TO DIE

by Jason Whitlock

  “And Maggie?” Sara asked.

  “Maggie is Humpty Dumpty, she’s damaged beyond repair. All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Maggie together again.”

  “Does she suspect your father of having killed Missy?”

  “She may, though she’d need someone to verbalize it for her, to make it real. I’m not about to.”

  Sara said, “Jesus, what a happy family.”

  “’Happy family is an oxymoron, Sara. In a way, all families are dysfunctional.”

  Sara sat upright in bed, hugging her knees to her chest with her arms; she hadn’t sufficient energy—or optimism—to disagree. Cassie was more than fifteen years her senior. Sara wondered: If I wasn’t lesbian, would I prefer older men to young? Thinking of Dojcsak and Burke as potential alternatives, Sara decided in her case sexual preference wasn’t about preference at all. In the case of men, was there really any choice?

  “What will you do?” Cassie asked.

  “I don’t know; I really don’t. I don’t know that it changes anything, just gives us more to think about. To me, Jordy is still our most reasonable suspect. I’ll need to speak to Ed, I suppose. Have him question your dad. Who knows? Your father might turn out to be our back-up plan.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  EUGENE BITSON AGREED to meet with Seamus Mcteer for breakfast at the Big Top Diner that morning. Had he not done so and decided to remain home instead with his wife, the day may have turned out and ended quite differently. It may not have, but for years thereafter, Eugene Bitson struggled with the uncertainty it might have. (Unlike Sara Pridmore, Eugene did allow for a grudging acceptance in the ripple theory of cause and effect.)

  He ordered black coffee with two slices of whole-wheat toast; buttered lightly, jam on the side. Despite his height and gaunt frame, Eugene ate sparingly, his diet consisting of one meal in the morning and one in the late afternoon or early evening. Eugene preferred coffee and tobacco to the more conventional food groups. In this, he and Ed Dojcsak were very much alike, though the Sheriff of Warren County carried an additional seventy pounds.

  Eugene sipped his coffee, which had grown cold. The crowd of early morning regulars had thinned to only a few retired and unemployed locals with little else to do but sit and speculate. Speculate on how things would be if they had their way, and how they weren’t because they didn’t.

  At the counter, complimentary copies of The Sentinel-Tribune were offered with coffee. Eugene was relieved, for a change, not to see a picture of either his family or himself on the front page. He shuddered to consider the speculation surrounding him.

  Seamus arrived shortly after nine, joining Eugene in a rear booth. Beneath his arm he carried a copy of The Sentinel-Tribune. He sat, placing it on the table between them. The waitress arrived with coffee.

  “Your treat?” he said, looking to Eugene.

  Eugene acknowledged with a nod.

  “Of course.” Turning to the waitress, Seamus said, “Eggs over, double sausage, home fries and whole-wheat toast.” She scratched his order on a pad. “And, dearie, add a tomato, fried and sliced thin, on the side. Have them sprinkle it with parmo cheese.”

  Seamus smiled, satisfied with his selection. His belly pressed against the tabletop. In the past two weeks, Seamus had gained weight, perhaps the pounds Maggie Bitson had lost, though this thought never occurred to him.

  “You have them?” asked Eugene after Seamus’ breakfast had arrived. He watched as Mcteer splashed ketchup over his home fries and eggs.

  “Here,” Seamus replied, patting his chubby palm on the copy of The Sentinel-Tribune still resting between them on the table.

  “All of them? Negatives and prints?”

  Through a mouthful of sausage and fried egg, Seamus said, “Aye, as promised; wha’, you don’t trust me?”

  Eugene smoked, not caring that the fumes drifted toward Seamus like a cloud.

  “How do I know you haven’t kept copies, on your computer?”

  Seamus worked his jaws, clamping down on his breakfast with vicious intent. Through a mouth half full he said, “Because it doesn’t behoove me to have pictures of a dead girl on my hard drive, Eugene, ‘specially if the cops come lookin’. All holy hell has broken loose. Have you not been readin’ the papers? If we’re found out, we’re done fer.” Still chewing, he said, “And you?”

  Eugene didn’t answer. In response, he opened the lapel of his all weather jacket, revealing an envelope thick—presumably—with cash.

  They were silent while Seamus ate and Eugene smoked. The waitress returned to clear plates. She poured more coffee and set the bill on the table between them. Seamus pressed it toward Eugene.

  “You’re a practical man, Gene,” he said.

  “I have to protect my family,” Eugene replied.

  Seamus looked skeptical. “Sure it i’nt yourself your needin’ t’ protect, Gene?”

  “We’ve been through this, Seamus. It’s no concern of yours. I’ve agreed to pay. To you, why shouldn’t matter.”

  “Aye,” said Seamus.

  Mcteer grinned. He was a happier man these days since Jordy Bitson had stopped pestering him with nightly telephone calls demanding payment in exchange for his silence. For a while, Seamus believed, truly, that his Scottish goose was cooked: he and Jeremy Radigan. They’d paid one installment the previous week, as agreed. Three nights ago the boy telephoned in a panic, demanding the full balance up-front. Seamus had tried but was unable to contact Radigan, to ask his partner what to do. Reluctantly, knowing Radigan’s aversion to such things, Seamus had left a message on Roots’ mobile, detailing their predicament. As Bitson had demanded, Seamus telephoned Jordy that night on the boy’s cell, to explain. No answer. Seamus tried a dozen times more, connecting only to the digital message informing him the cellular caller you are trying to reach is unavailable. Inexplicably, he hadn’t heard from Bitson since. But the boy’s call and subsequent disappearance had given Seamus ideas of his own, hadn’t it?

  “Let’s get on with it then,” he said to Eugene.

  “Here?”

  “The shop,” Seamus said. “I’ll count my money there.”

  Seamus retrieved his newspaper, allowing Eugene to pay. Together they exited onto Main Street toward the Exxxotica.

  Christopher Burke, who had all this time been waiting patiently outside, followed close behind.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  “NEVER LIKED YOU, Ed. Never. Big boy you were, but no stature. Saw it on the basketball court, when you were young; big boy who played small. You grew up no different.” Leland McMaster Senior chewed the tip of a soggy, unlit cigar. Turning to Ed Dojcsak, he said, “No profit in chumming with you, I said to Leland. You were a deficit. That’s how I described you then, a deficit, as if you were an accounting entry to be written off. Take more than you’ll ever give, I told him. Wasn’t wrong, was I, Ed?” It was not a question. “Not wrong t’all.”

  Ed Dojcsak recalled Henry Bauer claiming that if Dojcsak were a stock, he’d sell him short; now, McMaster admitting to have once regarded him in much the same way. Interesting: though Dojcsak had never regarded himself as an entry on a ledger, apparently others did.

  As instructed, Dojcsak arrived at the home of Leland McMaster shortly after sun up. He found him in the stable, tending—as he had told Dojcsak he would be—to an finicky mare, which Dojcsak saw now was actually injured.

  McMaster said, “She’ll be completely lame inside a month.” Dojcsak watched him carefully remove a soiled dressing from the fore leg of the horse, McMaster’s frame stooped against the backdrop of the larger animal. It made Leland appear a much smaller man than he actually was. “She’ll be suffering by then. Don’t like to see that, my animals suffer. We’ll need to put her down.”

  McMaster cleaned the wound, replaced the dressing with care and returned the mare to her paddock. He ran his hand lightly over the snout of the animal as if to reassure it before motioning to Dojcsak to follow him into the yar
d.

  Outside, away from the barn, the air was sweet with the scent of damp turf, the sun warm with the promise of a changing season. Last evening, the weather report had forecast snow; somewhere it was snowing, Dojcsak imagined, but not here.

  The heavy pockets of morning dew that had greeted his arrival were beginning to disperse. Dojcsak could now make out the muted shapes of a dozen horses in the distance, either grazing or trotting companionably beyond the stable, side by side over the dew soaked grass. The fields glittered, as if someone had shattered an emerald. The sky was blue, an open umbrella with thin wisps of high cirrus cloud scattered in places across the horizon like an abstract print. It brought to mind, for Dojcsak, images of Ireland he had seen once in a travel magazine.

  From the stable, the property stretched fifteen acres in each direction—sixty acres in all—to a barrier of hard wood bush McMaster had retained as a buffer to protect him from the development lands beyond. Over the years he had parceled off over four hundred acres at an average price, he liked to boast, of over twenty-five thousand dollars per, which in addition to the dealership and his other investments had made Leland a very wealthy man. Despite this, to Dojcsak, the McMaster residence appeared shabby, as if from neglect. It had been over thirty years since he had last been here and though it might be his imagination, Dojcsak recalled the home hadn’t changed much since the death of Leland Junior; only aged.

  “What brings you by, Ed? What is it you want?” As he spoke, McMaster busied himself applying oil to a saddle that straddled a wood fence post, working the liquid methodically into the grain until the leather gleamed. “Or do you simply enjoy persecuting my family?”

  Dojcsak lighted a cigarette, throwing the match to the ground. McMaster wore hand-tooled leather boots with a two-inch heel, making him an inch taller than Dojcsak. Like the saddle, the boots were worn but not nearly so well cared for. They were scuffed, in places covered with manure, as if McMaster wasn’t careful about where he stepped.

  As it strengthened, the rising sun softened the old man’s features, the light pressing into the cracks and gullies radiating from the corners of his eyes, his mouth and across his forehead, smoothing his skin as it did the natural landscape of the hills and valleys beyond. McMaster was a big man who had maintained his weight, though with age it had shifted downward from his shoulders to his belly, making him thick around the middle but not fat. His hair was full on the sides though thinning at the crown. Once a source of pride, it was now disheveled and unkempt.

  “How old would you be now, Leland?” Dojcsak asked. “Seventy-five, if I had to guess. You keep yourself busy.”

  McMaster smiled. “On eighty my last birthday,” he said, proud.

  As if to prove Dojcsak’s point, McMaster hefted the saddle from the fence post, carried it over his shoulder to an outdoor paddock, and fastened it on the back of a young foal. Dojcsak followed.

  “I won’t ride her,” he said, “just let her get used to the weight. She’ll do in a week, then, when she’s ready, we’ll give her a ride. Can’t push these things, start them too young; not good for the animal, not good for the owner,” he explained. “But you didn’t come out here to learn about horses, Ed. Get to the point or go home.” He fixed Dojcsak with a vacant stare, as if it were all the same to him.

  Dojcsak flipped his cigarette to the ground and watched as two animals raced across the field, their dark manes and long tails flowing in the breeze. Even from this distance, their power was obvious. Without thinking or seeming to directly address McMaster, Dojcsak said, “I think you killed your granddaughter.”

  McMaster didn’t immediately react. When he did, it was to say in a steady voice, “Well, I asked you to get to the point, Ed. You certainly have.”

  “I think you killed Missy because you were having sex with her, Leland. You’re certainly capable.”

  “Of killing her, Ed, or having sex with her?”

  “When she refused to continue, you became angry,” Dojcsak said. “Maybe she threatened to tell Maggie, or Eugene, or me. I don’t know, I haven’t thought it through that far yet. But I think you lost your temper, became enraged, and snapped her neck.”

  “You think?”

  “I know, Leland. Others suspect; I know.”

  “Your daft, Ed. What makes you think I would do such a thing?”

  “Have sex with her, or kill her?” Dojcsak said.

  McMaster tensed, fingers working and twisting at the knuckles of his big hands. He continued to chew on the tip of the soggy cigar, working it from one cheek to the other. The young foal wandered over to where they were standing, by the fence, as if to join the conversation. McMaster extended a hand, dragging it along a patch of contrasting color between the animal’s dark eyes. Leland McMaster hadn’t become the wealthiest man in Warren County without understanding the difference between quid pro quo and zero sum gain.

  He spat the remains of his cigar to the ground, extracting another from a breast shirt pocket. He ignited. Through a cloud of fumes, he said to Dojcsak, “I haven’t been an ideal husband, Ed. God knows I’m not a model father.” He shrugged. “I’ve been ruthless in my business dealings; some say dishonest. I’ll give them that if they want it, if it’s what they need to justify my success.” McMaster slapped the rear end of the foal, which whinnied and trotted away. “You can’t do to people what they don’t want to be done, Edward. You don’t live as long as me without learning that. I had nothing to do with her death. From what I understand of her nature, it could have been anyone.”

  “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Dojcsak said, unsure himself of whether he was referring to Leland, Maggie, Missy or the whole damn clan.

  McMaster considered the statement. He chuckled. “You’re right, Ed. Maggie was a handful, a little tart,” he said, unaware of the irony in his characterization of the child his daughter once was. “From the beginning, Ed. It was obvious, watching her grow up, strutting her stuff like a Lolita. To me it was unnatural, what with two boys and a man in the house. I warned her mother, but Helen said nothing, did nothing. Maggie just couldn’t keep her housecoat closed,” McMaster said, as if exasperated. “Or her knees.”

  “You accept no responsibility, no blame?” asked Dojcsak, his voice emotionless, as if they were speaking on matters of less significance.

  McMaster didn’t answer directly. Instead, he said, “Look around you, Ed. Do you see what I have, what I’ve accomplished? This is not a product of my upbringing,” he said. “Why should you assume that Maggie is a product of hers? Sooner or later, we all need to take responsibility.”

  Dojcsak extracted another cigarette. Since leaving the house that morning, he’d smoked ten. “People are, people do,” he said quietly.

  “Don’t be cryptic, Ed. You lack the finesse.”

  Dojcsak inhaled deeply. The foal returned, as if seeking guidance.

  “Help me to understand, Leland, because I’m having trouble getting my head around this.” Dojcsak extended his arms as if attempting to grasp a large bowl. “Is it about sex, or control? Is it physical, or emotional? What makes it so necessary?” McMaster did not reply. Dojcsak continued. “Seems to me this is the distinction, Leland. If it’s physical, then it’s about sex, if it’s emotional, then it’s about control. Or maybe it’s less complicated than that. Like a mountain; you climb it because it’s there.”

  Dojcsak turned to McMaster, his expression a mix of curiosity and understanding.

  McMaster avoided his gaze. He said, “Given the right circumstances, Ed, we’re all tempted to have a go at the summit aren’t we?” He walked slowly toward the house. “Go home,” he said over his shoulder. “You look awful. Have a drink, it helps.”

  “She had AIDS, Lee, you have AIDS,” Dojcsak said before the old man reached the front stoop.

  “Don’t you read the newspapers, Ed, watch the TV? Half the God damn world has bloody AIDS. Hell, the President himself has just committed another fifteen billion dollars to its eradica
tion.”

  McMaster smiled, entered his home and closed the door behind him.

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE

  CHRISTOPHER BURKE entered the Exxxotica Video on the tail of Eugene Bitson, before Eugene had the opportunity to turn and fasten the dead bolt behind him.

  “Sorry,” Eugene said when Burke entered. “Closed. Open at ten.” Bitson indicated the store hours by pointing to a vinyl sticker posted to the door. He seemed not to recognize the Deputy Sheriff.

  Burke forced himself through the entrance, more aggressively than needed. Behind Eugene, Seamus Mcteer stood transfixed, as if he were a man found suddenly in a place he wasn’t permitted to be. To Burke, he looked guilty already.