Kubiak rotated his chair ninety-degrees so he faced outside. Restless, he stood and moved to the window. From his office, he had a clear view across the Town Square, north over the river to the fields and the Adirondacks beyond. To his right, the Tongue Mountain Range was just visible. In autumn, the trees would erupt in a brief cacophony of color, an intermittent outburst of orange, yellow and red in their transition from green to brown; a splash of color brushed with an errant stroke across the sky. Kubiak was never more content than when roaming these country back roads or secluded lakes, foraging through the backcountry like Grizzly Adams.
He sat. Returning his attention to the file, Kubiak carefully reviewed his own notes and those of Deputies Pridmore and Burke. Sara had, of course, typed her observations in page after page of sprawling, fact-based, emotionless commentary; if it came down to it, Kubiak admitted, the most useful in a court of law. Burke submitted his suppositions in a tight, delicate handwritten scrawl, at odds entirely with his macho exterior. For his part, Kubiak provided a short-form, bullet point abstract traveling horizontally, vertically and diagonally across the tattered pages of his notebook, a form of pigeon shorthand understandable only to him.
Kubiak ignited a cigarette, his twentieth of the day, though the day was not yet half over. Though last evening it was cold and threatening frost, to Kubiak the morning felt unseasonably warm. He surrendered to the heat by opening a window to his office. He removed his jacket, tugging loose the knot in his necktie. The breeze agitated the cigarette smoke like an incoming tide might do to a small boat, tossing it, turning it, and dispersing it. He noted the time, regretting lunch was an hour away, resigned to sipping black coffee in lieu of beer.
Delicately, Kubiak pressed a finger to his cheek. He flinched. “Jesus,” he said aloud. His skin was raw, as if it had been peeled. Recalling Rena’s caution, Kubiak feared he might yet strike bone, or that he already had.
Last night he had dreamed, for Kubiak a rare though not special occurrence. At the time the dream seemed more like a nightmare. Though he had been wakened by it, Kubiak had woken neither frightened nor disturbed: simply compelled, as if being made privy to the anguish of another man.
In the dream, Kubiak—or a man who while sleeping Kubiak imagined himself to be—was on stage, alone at the Seneca Falls community theatre performing in a scene from Macbeth.
In a soliloquy, Kubiak confessed guilt in the death of his own father to an audience consisting of both his family and the immediate family of the deceased, Missy Bitson: Maggie, Eugene, Mandy, Maggie’s oldest child Evelyn, though he hadn’t seen her for more than a decade, together with Leland Sr. and his wife. They occupied front row seats. Nearer the back were Kubiak’s friends: past, present, living, deceased, and by virtue of circumstance, age or disease, those soon to be dead. All looked to him as if to say, “Et tu, Brute?”
The ushers in the theater consisted of dead girls, or rather given the circumstances of the dream, the ghosts of dead girls, Kubiak imagined. Ghosts, because to him they showed no obvious sign of decay, but no apparent sign of life either. With the stage lights bright against his upturned face and the house lights down, Kubiak was unable to recognize them. A good thing, he decided.
The ushers escorted a steady procession of townspeople, both living and dead, to their seats. Though the theater was small, it continued to fill. As if to accommodate the limited seating, the audience seemed to merge, male and female, young and old, melting into an indistinct pool of androgynous agelessness in an effort to become one.
Kubiak dressed in a plain white smock. Clearly visible through the thin material was an enormous erection. Kubiak glanced at it curiously, as if it belonged to someone else, which even in the dream he knew it must, Kubiak never having been so generously endowed. On stage, Kubiak delivered his lines through clenched teeth, as if he were in pain, which he was since with every utterance he was for some unknown reason peeling a layer of skin from his face, digging in with his fingernails as if he were removing a mask. Offstage the director, Missy Bitson, encouraged him. She used hand motions to urge him to remove more layers, scraping at her own face in mock sympathy. Kubiak woke before he reached bare flesh.
Although certain elements of the dream were unsettling, Kubiak woke disappointed others were not real. He recalled a film he and Rena had once watched together: The Sixth Sense. I see dead people. It was not so unusual.
He returned his attention to the files. Sweat dropped from his forehead, smearing the ink on the page. Kubiak wiped the moisture away with the cuff of his shirt. He moved to light another cigarette, realizing he had one burning in the ashtray beside him. He sipped cold coffee, draining an accompanying glass of tap water in one gulp.
Beyond his closed door the telephone rang, answered alternately by either Dorothy O’Rielly or Trinity Van Duesen. In the week since the murder, the telephone in the office rang less often. He faced the window, placed his orthopedic shoes on the sill, tried to settle his bulk comfortably in the unforgiving wood chair. Again, he touched his fingertips to his face, overwhelmed suddenly by the possible implications on his daily ritual of the condition of his frayed skin. A breeze kicked up, making its way through his open window, agitating the papers on his desk. Kubiak shivered. He placed his palm flat down on the Bitson file.
“Be still, Missy Bitson,” he said, “be still.”
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
HIS PARENTS HAD not seen Jordy Bitson since yesterday, the day before if you include the last day on which Jordy rushed from the house before dinner to meet with who, precisely, his mother and father couldn’t say.
Mrs. Bitson said, “And before you ask, we haven’t spoke to the boy neither. When I do, I’ll give him a piece of my mind. When I see him, I’ll give him a piece of this.” She raised an open hand.
Drew Bitson looked away, embarrassed presumably, for his wife, though living across the street from the family, Kubiak knew it could be from either intimidation or possibly outright fear. She was a small woman, but Angela Bitson was wiry, with the whippy frame of a long distance runner and the temper of an agitated yellow jacket. She worked odd shifts at the local laundromat and her volatile disposition had more than once caused her to run afoul of an unsatisfied customer. On summer nights, her high-pitched and angry wail carried over the yard through Kubiak’s living room bay window.
He suspected that as a child Jordy carried on his body the scars of his mother’s temper, but with his skin so dark, Kubiak was unable to tell.
“Are his friends calling?” Kubiak wanted to know.
“Why not ask your girl, Art?” Angela said. “For the times she calls here looking for that boy, she might as well move in.”
“Angela, please,” her husband said.
“Don’t you please me, mister,” she said, turning on him. To Kubiak she said, “I can understand a black boy wanting a piece of white ass, Art, it’s to be expected. But what he sees in your child, I’ll never know.”
“I’ll speak to Jennifer, Mrs. Bitson. I’m sorry to hear she’s been a nuisance.”
Standing beside Kubiak, now, Sara winced, dumbfounded that under the circumstances he should feel compelled to apologize on behalf of his daughter.
Drew Bitson stood back from his wife and off to the side, as if for safety needing to keep her at arms length. He towered over Angela, looking down on her from a height of six and a half feet, but in the presence of his wife, Drew seemed withdrawn, almost contrite. Physically he was a big man, in character much, much smaller.
Sara recalled the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Drew didn’t have a head like a skull, his skin was not scarred and he didn’t drool; Sara didn’t believe he ate raw squirrels and cats but she couldn’t say for sure if he didn’t scratch at people’s screen doors when they slept, or if he left tracks in their backyards during the night. It took Sara a moment to realize in the novel, the description had applied to the white boy, Boo Radley, played in the film, she recalled, by a young Robert Duvall. She excused her mis
take now by thinking how aptly the description applied to Drew. Drew hadn’t killed his niece, but the evidence obtained years ago in the killing of Frances Stoops was inconclusive. Like Cassie said: he may not have been convicted, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t kill her.
Was it possible for him to have passed on this compulsion to his son? (I’m reaching, Sara thought. Might as well enlist the services of the psychic Angelique to make my case against the boy.)
“Would it be possible for us to have a look at Jordy’s room?” Kubiak asked.
“Without a warrant?”
“It would be easier without one,” Kubiak replied. “In the end, it won’t alter the outcome.”
“Be my guest,” Angela said without considering it further, pointing to the stairs. “Second room on the right.”
As they proceeded to the second floor, they overheard Angela Bitson say to her husband, “Don’t you dare, Drew, don’t you dare look at me that way.” Silence then, “You want some of this, too?”
Kubiak imagined her raising a clenched black fist, bearing down on her husband.
Sara said, “The woman is a tyrant.”
“It explains the boy,” said Kubiak.
Sara was doubtful. “Misplaced aggression?”
“Or worse,” Kubiak conjectured.
Jordy’s room was only marginally filthier than that of any other teenager might be, Kubiak suspected. On the walls were posters: names such as Tupac Shakur, Run-DMC, Absolute Zero, Exhumination and Regurgitator, hellish images of violence, mayhem and gore. Like Jordy, the principals were covered with tattoos; like his daughter, earrings and metal studs in unimaginable places. So this, Kubiak decided, is what the two have in common.
Sara studied the wall art dispassionately. “The kid is fucked up, for sure,” she stated conclusively.
The room appeared as if Jordy had departed in the morning, expecting to be home later in the day. It did not have the look of flight, but rather hurried departure. The bed was unmade, clothes scattered over the floor in small bundles: boxer underwear; athletic socks turning in color from white to yellow; blue jeans; tee shirts, and, for warmer weather, shorts.
An overflowing ashtray sat on a low bedside table on which a lamp burned. Three Styrofoam take-out cups left a residue of dark circles on the veneer. One cup was half full with cold coffee, the cream curdled, a cigarette butt floating on the greasy surface. Compact disks and magazines were piled haphazardly in a corner, as if their owner had stolen them or received them at no cost, their care reflecting his perceived value.
From Jordy’s bedroom window, Kubiak looked across the street to his own home, to Jennifer’s second floor bedroom window. Had the two traded messages across the way, he wondered, using flashlights late at night to communicate in some rudimentary code known only to each other? Kubiak suspected but couldn’t be sure, convinced that on more than one occasion in the past months he had overheard Jenny sneaking from the home late at night. While his mind, at these times, cried out to challenge her, his will was dispirited and unsure.
“Wouldn’t exactly qualify for the Good Housekeeping Seal of approval,” Sara muttered distastefully.
Kubiak poked at the bundles of scattered clothing with the toe of his heavy leather shoe, as if they might bite. He pulled a week worth of dirty laundry from under the bed: a tee shirt stained with what looked to be dried blood, but otherwise nothing useful. Sara moved to the closet, giving a low whistle as she opened the door.
“Jesus,” she said. “What a pigsty.” She extracted a set of latex gloves from a rear pocket of her trousers and snapped them over her fingers. She offered a second pair to Kubiak.
Between the mattress and the box spring of the bed, Kubiak discovered an assortment of sex magazines, homo and heterosexual, each with specific photos earmarked by a dog-eared corner of the page. He studied the image of a nude, black male model masturbating while seated on the edge of a toilet. Like Jordy, he was young and tattooed. He passed the magazine to Sara.
She studied the picture. “My God; I’m impressed.”
Kubiak moved to the bedside table. Again, nothing useful; a paper back novel, a half empty package of cigarettes, two unopened packages of condoms, a tin of breath mints.
The high chest of drawers was next. Without having to search, Kubiak discovered a leather pouch containing a significant quantity of marijuana.
Kubiak turned to Sara. “He’s dealing, Sara. Too much here for him to smoke himself.”
“It confirms what Cassie McMaster suspected,” she agreed.
“Was Missy using?” he asked.
“If she was, someone would have said. If they had, I would have told you.”
Sara continued to rummage while Kubiak moved meticulously through the remaining three dresser drawers. More CDs, more magazines—though none pornographic—socks, underwear, blue jeans and tee shirts. A healthy, if depleted, supply of condoms, cigarette packages, some empty, some half-empty, some full, flakes of loose tobacco littering the bottom of each drawer. Inexpensive aftershave of a kind available at Walgreens, deodorant stick and, in the final drawer, travel brochures to such destinations as New York City, San Francesco, Chicago and New Orleans. Kubiak showed these to Sara.
“He’s going to do a runner, Art.”
“Do you think?”
“Sure. He’s going to do a runner. We should call it in, issue a BOLO.”
“Early yet, Sara, to involve the State Police. What would be the charge?”
Sara returned her attention to the closet. After a moment, she said, “I may have something here, Art.”
From beneath what could only be described as a heap of accumulated odds and ends—strap on leg weights, dumbbells, miscellaneous bicycle and skateboard parts, still more compact discs and empty jewel cases, discarded posters of fallen rap and rock demi-gods, more clothing, ball caps, high-school text books, bungee chords, a roll of duct tape, and months of accumulated dust—Sara extracted a large card board box, folded in at the flaps.
Kubiak did not kneel but moved to stand beside Sara as she opened the container.
Inside was a laptop computer, envelopes, more drugs and cash, lots of it. Sara counted: forty-two hundred dollars in mostly large bills, twenties, fifties and two-dozen one hundreds.
“Our Jordy is a very resourceful young man, Art. Look at this. More than I make in a month.”
Me too, thought Kubiak. Not really, but close.
“What’s in the envelopes?” he asked.
Sara opened the flap. Photographs, a dozen to twenty snapshots in the first envelope, four envelops in all. Color photos showing Jordy Bitson engaged in sex with his cousin Missy, in ways Sara could not have imagined possible. Jordy alone and masturbating, Missy alone and masturbating, looking younger in each photograph than even her thirteen years would imply. In some of the photos, her pubis was shorn to the skin and her breasts bound tightly in a halter-like training bra, to disguise, Sara suspected, her true age. In others, Missy appeared bound and gagged—explaining the duct tape and bungee chords—blindfolded and hanging suspended from her wrists from an overhead metal bar. In some, Missy was dressed in a schoolgirl kilt and knee-high socks, reminiscent of the MTV video Sara had recently seen.
Image after image poured from the envelope like frames in a dirty picture reel. Sara became nauseous, fearing she might throw up. Her vision blurred. From anger or embarrassment, she wasn’t sure. Whatever Sara had expected, it was not this. This was not a modern day incarnation of her childhood version of Tickle Me. This was not an example of pubescent promiscuity run amok, but something much more depraved and, God help them, insidious. Nothing amateur about the material and while crude, to Sara they were not crude.
The article in the Times, her conversation with Joe Doeung, elements of her own upbringing came back upon her like acid reflux, bile rising to her throat. Sara cringed, as if her skin had shrunk two sizes.
Beside her, Kubiak remained fixed to the floor, still standing but seeming to sway sligh
tly on his feet: perspiration seeped from his pores. Though graphic in content, the photographs were not shocking for the mere fact of their existence. In many of the photos Missy was smiling (and did the smile not reach to her eyes?) with her legs spread wide (and willingly?). There was no hint of coercion (or threat?): it was not as if a gun were being held to her head. The photographs were a confirmation of the girl Missy was, and had she lived, the woman she was destined to become.
“The others,” he said.
“I can’t, Art,” Sara replied. “Not yet.” She moved to stand to her feet. Kubiak pressed a heavy hand firmly to her shoulder, holding her in place. “I can’t, Art, I think I’m going to puke.”
“The others,” he commanded, his voice husky and unsure.
“More of the same, Art. 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.” Kubiak didn’t specify if he were referring to the trial or over the course of her career.
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