Flame Out

by M. P. Cooley

  “Stop—” Dave said.

  “She was a whore.”

  “You never . . .” Natalya’s voice shook and she stood up, “use that word to talk about your mother in my presence again.”

  Lucas mumbled a barely audible apology. It was enough for Natalya. She returned to her seat.

  “I’m sorry for outburst,” she said. “Continue now, June.”

  Dave nodded, and I asked my next question. “Did you notice anything different about that last time she disappeared?”

  Natalya hesitated. “After Vera stole my car . . . it went quiet. Usually we heard something, calls from her in middle of night, demanding money. Or police, holding her in cell, forcing us to take her back, not that Taras would have ever turned her away from his door.”

  I asked if they had any pictures of Vera.

  “No. None,” Lucas said. “I made sure of it. I never wanted to see her again.”

  “I do,” Natalya said. She walked over to the bookcase that was topped with several framed pictures. Lucas with Tara grinned out from the first. In the second, Dave wore a cap and gown at his high school graduation, proudly flanked by his brother and father. The third was a woman pushing a young boy on a swing. Looking closely, I realized it was Luisa and Teddy Lawler. Dad had said Natalya took Luisa’s death hard, but I was surprised to see their photo lined up next to family.

  Natalya pulled out an album from a lower shelf. She flipped past black-and-white pictures from the forties and fifties, a young Natalya holding a toddler in her lap and an early picture of the house, the backyard overflowing with squash and apple trees. Suddenly, there was a burst of color. The sixties. She pointed to a photo.

  “Wedding day,” she said.

  Color photography was wasted on Vera. She wore a white minidress, made even shorter by her protruding belly. Teased black hair spilled down her shoulders and framed her pale face, her eyes were lined black, and her lips, painted a nude tone, were set in a harsh line. Next to her was Dave’s father, Taras, a man who could be Dave’s twin if Dave grew a truly monumental mustache. Behind him stood Natalya, wearing a green plaid suit and a boxy hat. She looked grim, but then she didn’t appear to smile in any photos I had ever seen of her.

  “Who’s that?” I asked, indicating the other person in the picture. A huge man, tall and well fed, his girth hidden under an expensively tailored suit. His hair was Brylcreemed away from his face, and his fleshy grin hid his eyes.

  “Maxim,” Natalya said. I brought the album close, staring. It was Judge Medved. Growing up I’d met him a few times, usually when my Dad dragged me to some political picnic. He’d always play umpire in the pick-up softball games, his voice booming, filling a baseball diamond.

  Natalya continued through the album, and I saw pictures of Dave and Lucas, sometimes with their mother and father, more often with their father alone. There was one of Vera wearing coveralls, scowling, leaving the Sleep-Tite factory with a grinning Lucas, followed by a photo of a large group at a picnic table, toasting the camera with mugs of beer. Natalya gave me the names of these potential witnesses and told me whether they were living or dead. Most were dead.

  “Natalya,” I asked, “Do you remember the night Vera disappeared?”

  “What Taras and others told me only.” She leaned close. “You want me to tell you who killed her, yes?”

  Between the picture on the bookcase and her testimony at Bernie Lawler’s trial, I was pretty sure how she was going to answer, and I was right.

  “Bernie Lawler,” she said. “He abused and controlled women, destroying Luisa, a lovely angel. There is no doubt for me that Bernie killed Vera as well.”

  “June,” Dave said. He was slumped on the couch, drained. “June, I don’t want to hijack the interview, but would you mind if we talked about the funeral?”

  “What funeral?” Lucas said. “There’s not going to be any memorial. No one liked her enough.”

  “There’s people,” Dave said.

  “What people? Because I didn’t see anyone real worked up when she left. No one cared.”

  “I cared,” Dave said.

  “You were a stupid kid.”

  “I’m not a stupid kid now, and I want a memorial.”

  “Well, we’re not doing it. There’s no place to bury her. Dad’s plot is with Aunt Natalya, and there’s not an empty spot.”

  “So we disinter him—”

  “No.”

  “Your mother will have memorial,” Natalya said. Lucas protested, but she shushed him. “And husbands and wives, they must be buried together. I will buy plot just for me.”

  I flipped my notebook closed. It was great to be on the inside of this family, watching them negotiate over burial space, giving me a sense of what price they’d put on Vera Batko’s life. However, they needed time alone to figure this out.

  I stood. “Dave, will you be OK if I take the car?”

  “No, no,” Dave said. “I’m going with you.” Natalya protested but Dave went to her, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “I’ll be here early tomorrow. We have a memorial to plan. Right, teta?”

  “Don’t be alone,” she said.

  “There’s June,” Dave said. Natalya gripped his sleeve, and he calmed her, even as he disentangled his hand. “My family’s you, Lucas, and Tara. And June. I’ll be fine.”

  “SEE THAT BILLBOARD?”

  We’d just crossed the bridge back into town, when Dave pointed up the hill to a billboard advertising the services of a personal injury lawyer. “When Luisa and Teddy Lawler disappeared, Bernie Lawler bought that billboard, offering a $100,000 reward. And the posters! Taped up on every surface, from store windows to streetlights, and when they got dirty, someone came and replaced them.”

  I didn’t tell Dave my mother had organized that poster campaign, enlisting people on the town’s Christmas committee to hang posters instead of garlands.

  “Now I can appreciate what they were trying to do, but the twelve-year-old me, he was pissed off! Because here was this woman, and she got all this attention, everyone searching for her. And my mom had been gone almost six months at that point, and no one gave a shit. So I went down to the police station, and your dad helped me file a missing person report. He gave me and Mom attention. He wrote down all of the information on his pad, and then recorded all the information on a missing person report, typing out what she was wearing, the color of her purse, how tall.” He ran his hand up and down the leg of his wool pants, tracing the weave. “The ring she wore.”

  “It’s a wonder you aren’t still sitting there,” I said. “My father wasn’t the fastest typist.”

  “Wite-out was smeared across your dad’s hand because he kept correcting mistakes while the page was still in the typewriter, but he was patient and treated me seriously, and for the first time I thought, ‘What about being a cop?’”

  My dad inspired two law enforcement careers, mine and Dave’s. I wondered if he had any idea.

  “The disappointing part,” Dave continued, “was that after I filed the report, I expected the posters, the news coverage, everything, and instead . . . silence.” He paused. “But your dad went around and interviewed everyone. Once he heard more about my mom, he laid off, figured the hoopla would hurt me more.” Dave sat forward in his seat. “Hey, hey . . . stop here.”

  I pulled to the curb in front of Gergan’s liquor store. “It’s after nine.”

  “What’s a couple of minutes between friends?”

  He got out of the car and rapped on the window. Sparky Gergan came to the door, opening up when he saw Dave. Dave talked rapidly. Sparky disappeared and reappeared with a brown paper bag.

  Dave climbed back into the car, breathing heavily.

  I pulled away. “Did you just suborn breaking the liquor laws of the State of New York?”

  “Nope. I explained the situation to Sparky, and he kindly offered to donate a couple bottles of Stoli for my mother’s memorial. I figured scamming liquor’s the tribute my mother most dese
rved.” He paused. “I also told him I’d be by in a few days to buy a bunch.”

  On Dave’s street, buds sprouted on the trees and maple helicopters rained down—everything would be green in a few days. I pulled up in front of his house and killed the engine.

  “Don’t,” Dave said, grabbing my hand as I started to pocket the keys. “Tonight I need to be alone.”

  “Is that a good idea?”

  “It’s a very good idea,” he said. “I need to get my head straight, think a little.”

  “Drink, you mean.”

  “That’s when I do my best thinking. Look, Lyons, tonight it’s gotta be me and some Stoli and the memories of my mom. Tomorrow I’ll be good old Dave again. OK?”

  “OK. One condition, however.” I reached over and removed one of the bottles. “One’s plenty for tonight. I don’t want you doing too much damage, OK?”

  He hugged me too tightly, burying his face in my shoulder, and then broke away suddenly. “You’re a pal, Lyons.”

  He got out of the car and walked slowly up the walk. Once he was safely inside, I made a U-turn toward the station. The room was empty except for Leslie, Lorraine’s sister, who worked dispatch at night. Vera Batko’s missing person file sat squarely in the middle of my desk. The chief anticipated everything.

  I typed up my notes for the day, digging up the phone number and address of Dan Jaleda with plans to interview him tomorrow about who ordered the construction of that fake wall. I tucked the folder into my bag for a little bedtime reading and left. I needed to get home before my father saw the news. He had been delighted when he thought the case was closed. Now it was wide open, and the knowledge that Vera had been murdered, the crime unsolved and undiscovered, might destroy him.

  “June bug!” Dad called when I walked through the door. He was playing Blue Öyster Cult, quietly so it wouldn’t wake Lucy, and reading a Lawrence Block novel. The TV was on, and a picture of the factory flashed past. Was word out? Dad smiled when he saw me.

  “We need to talk,” I said and flipped off the TV.

  CHAPTER 6

  PROMPTLY AT 7:27 A.M., THE CORONER’S ASSISTANT WHEELED out Vera Batko’s body, draped in a sheet. The coroner, Norm Finch, wasn’t due until 7:30—he liked to go to early mass—but his assistant arranged things so as not to waste even a minute of Norm’s time.

  “You got a file yet?” Chief Donnelly asked the young man, who shifted from one foot to the other, half in and half out of the door.

  “Dr. Finch hasn’t released his finding. He’ll brief you at the appropriate time.” He exited before Donnelly could ask another question.

  “Well, OK then,” Donnelly said to the swinging door. “I tell you, Lyons, this whole coroner thing doesn’t work out, Norm’s got a future as a cult leader. They would rather die than defy his authority.”

  Donnelly resembled my father, a big guy fighting gravity, his shoulders sloped as muscle tone disappeared. I’d never worked a case with him—he was too busy managing up and out, conferring with the DA and negotiating budgets with the city council. Donnelly would have preferred to be on the streets—again like my father—doing real police work.

  Donnelly walked over and touched the computer standing next to the autopsy table. He ran his finger up the stem of the microphone, tapping the mouthpiece.

  “I spoke to Special Agent Bascom today,” he said, still studying the device. I braced for a discussion about when I was leaving the police department.

  “Can I ask you a question?” he said. I nodded.

  “Why do we have a karaoke machine in the autopsy room?”

  I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Autopsies are dirty work. This allows Norm to take notes without having to get gore on pen and paper. Congresswoman Brouillette arranged for a grant.”

  “Huh.” Donnelly leaned back against the counter, body relaxed, scanning the room. “So Agent Bascom said he had a colleague in Phoenix visit the Carfast corporate offices who confirmed that the van found with your burn victim was rented at one of their shops.”

  “He briefed me on it,” I said.

  Donnelly chose his words carefully. “June, I know you can solve this case on your own. But the Hopewell Falls Police Department has successfully collaborated with the FBI, unfortunate as those circumstances were. And it’s looking more and more like our burn victim crossed state lines, willingly or no. Given your proven track record with Special Agent Bascom, and Bascom’s volunteering his services and the services of the Albany FBI district office, I’d like to have us collaborate again.” He gave me a half smile. “I’d partner up with you myself, but I’m a few years out of date, plus I might have to stop everything to fight with the mayor over how many pencils we’re allowed to have.”

  The chief went quiet, waiting for my response. I appreciated his presenting me with a choice, limited as it was. Between the budgetary pressure and the manpower shortage, how could I say no?

  “That would be fine,” I said, and Donnelly let out a breath. “Although it would have been fun to work with you, plus you know the history.”

  “You do have someone who’s an expert on that time period sitting bored in your living room.”

  “Oh, he’s not bored.”

  This morning had already been a long one. After arriving home last night, I’d stayed up talking with my father for an hour. It had been a one-sided conversation, my father mumbling “OK” or “Hmm”—he was trying to process the fact that the body found in the barrel wasn’t Luisa. When our non-conversation finished, I went upstairs and read through Vera’s file. My dad’s case notes were small and neat, so unlike the messages he scrawled and left on the counter, like “Gone to park” or “Need milk.” I took out my own pad and documented the names of witnesses and a timeline of Vera’s disappearance. Taras had dropped her off at the Sleep-Tite factory for her shift at 9:45, wearing work coveralls. She had been spotted by several people punching in and putting her purse in a locker. After that it got sketchy: some people swore they saw her at her machine, others said she never manned her place on the assembly line, and one woman claimed she saw Vera slip out the back door halfway through her shift. I made a note of her name: Yolanda Zulitki.

  I had intended to wake up early, setting my alarm for 5:30 so I could have another talk with my father before leaving. A good night’s sleep would have let the bad news sink in, and he might have more questions than he had the night before. The smell of coffee woke me at 5:00.

  I shuffled downstairs, still in my pajamas, and found Dad in the dining room, which was unexpected. Some people break out the fine china for holidays; we broke out this room, never using it otherwise. Dad sat at the table surrounded by papers, coffee forgotten as he rapidly jotted notes on a notepad.

  He flipped a page. “I thought it would help you if I wrote up everything I remembered about the investigation into her disappearance.”

  I skipped asking whether he had slept, requesting that he read me his notes.

  “Vera was a little wild. I picked her up a few times for public drunkenness, delivering her back to her husband, Taras. Back then, ‘alcohol rehabilitation’ was getting people home safe and pouring coffee into them. And most of those people I picked up . . . they weren’t ladies.”

  I raised my eyebrow at him. He protested. “No, no. I meant not women. Here you go.” Dad handed me the sheets. He had put together a list of witnesses.

  I read through the names. “You have a good memory. These were all the people listed in the original file.”

  “You read my old notes?” He sat up straight. “If you show them to me, it would jog my memory.”

  I put my hand on his arm and glanced over his notes. “Why don’t we start fresh. Tell me what comes to mind.”

  “Not a whole lot. Dave was the only one who thought she was in some kind of danger . . . something not self-inflicted.” My dad sat forward, resting his arms on the oak table, which brought back a memory of sitting at the dinner table, my sister and I arguing with my mo
ther about eating the manicotti she had “made gourmet” by adding raisins. Mom had banned Dad’s notebook from the table, and he respected the letter of this law, but he got up every two minutes to go to the other room and make a note to himself.

  “So I talked to the family and interviewed her co-workers until her family told us to stop. People were angry at her for running out, especially Lucas. Dave’s dad, he’d given up. So we dismissed Dave’s complaint, and . . . he was right the whole time.” My father stared out the window into the blackness of the backyard, and I reached over and patted his hand. He had a faraway look in his eye, and I think he was back in 1983. “I was so caught up in the Luisa Lawler case that I fell down on the job. The Luisa Lawler case made my career, got me named police chief, and I completely missed another murder.”

  NORM BLEW IN AT 7:30 ON THE DOT.

  “Hello, old man,” he said, greeting the chief. “And Officer Lyons, Junior.”

  As he peeled off his rain slicker and put on his lab coat, I was struck at how big he was. Even in his mid-sixties, he had power. He was the kind of guy who would go out in a bar fight or from a heart attack. My father told me stories of how Norm’s family had run all the cockfights in the north end of the county from the fifties until the seventies. Even though Norm was an MD, I could believe there were cockfights in his past. The fact that he knew where the bodies were buried—or at least the chicken carcasses—made him bulletproof politically. No one was going to run against him.

  “So the cause of death was a skull fracture and strangulation.” Norm washed his hands. “I can’t tell if she was raped; however, she did have sexual intercourse in the hours before she died.”

  I found that unbelievable. “She’s been dead thirty years.”

  “Vera Batko was remarkably intact, except for a crushed thorax and a smashed skull.” Labeled bone fragments lay next to her body, clumps of black hair still attached. “The body’s decay ended up not polluting the hair, and we got some of our best evidence.”