THE RIGHT TIME TO DIE (13 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EVERY WEEK
for almost thirty years, Roots Radigan traveled home to Mineola. For the first ten years, he made the journey over the desolate stretch of interstate in the battered nineteen sixty nine Chevy Bel Air he’d purchased on a weekly installment plan from McMaster Chev-Olds, a plan offered at the time only to employees and one for which the owner had high hopes.

Not much to look at, the vehicle nonetheless was reliable. Roots began the long drive each Friday evening after completing the day shift at the dealership. On the way he stopped only once: for food, for coffee, and to relieve himself. In Long Island, Roots stayed at The Mayfair Inn. Though the May-
fair
was anything
but
, its location between Mineola and Belmont Park Racetrack made it convenient, allowing Roots to conduct both business and pleasure expeditiously, Roots having a passion for the ponies. On these occasions, after spending two nights away, Roots returned home on Sunday evening, repeating the routine by stopping only once: food, coffee, and to relieve himself.

In nineteen eighty-two, The Mayfair was demolished to allow for the construction of an interchange passing from the Union Turnpike to Highway 25B. Thereafter, Roots stayed at the home of his younger and only brother, Dave. Though in many ways alike, in other ways Dave could not abide his brother’s preoccupations. He would never say or openly object to Roots weekly stopovers, because as their mother was still living, she appreciated the frequent visits from the son out of whose asshole she believed the sun to shine. Also, though Dave Radigan would never admit to it, Roots scared his little brother, shitless.

By this time, Roots was no longer driving the Bel-Air, which, in the year after the demolition of The Mayfair, had sparked its last plug midway over the Throg’s Neck Bridge. While Leland McMaster was pleased his top mechanic had for so long maintained the ancient vehicle in running order, he was happy to replace it with another. (On the same installment plan as the first, though by this time payments had been adjusted to monthly from weekly.)

By the early seventies, Radigan had settled comfortably in Church Falls, abandoning the caravan to occupy the second floor bedroom in a three-story semi-detached home belonging to Arthur and Mildred Mcteer. Their only son Seamus had recommended Radigan as a potentially agreeable tenant after the Mcteers were forced to sublet the spare room. Mildred had lost her job at the local Laundromat after being accused of pilfering loose change from the machines. Though she denied it, the stubborn owner had refused Mildred recourse to any appeal. For the Mcteers, the additional income would come in handy. For Roots—who in Church Falls was known now by his given name of Jeremy—the room was comfortable, cheap and located conveniently across the hall from Seamus. Meals were supplied and at Roots (
Jeremy’s
) request, Mrs. Mcteer consented to do his wash.

By then, his hair was no longer shoulder length. Despite an effort to brush weekly, his teeth remained desperate. Within days of abandoning the temporary colony by the river, Radigan had secured a permanent address and not one, but two steady sources of income. Without intending it, Roots Radigan had become respectable, though in a way no one other than he would recognize.

Lying in bed on the day after Missy Bitson was killed, Jeremy adjusted the bed sheet. He examined his penis: swollen slightly but nicely, and of its own free will becoming hard. (Or was this wishful thinking?) Jeremy recalled fondly his days by the river; endless hours merging seamlessly into days full with drugs, drink and sex. Meeting Seamus Mcteer had proved fortuitous, allowing him to revive his contacts in Mineola with more provocative material. To look at him, who would think such a clumsy fart as Seamus would have such a way with kids?

Covering himself, Radigan reached for a cigarette. After nine: too late now to pop the
little blue pill
. Marie was busy preparing for a morning class and Missy was dead (he thought of her only fleetingly, and even then only in terms of how her death would affect his income).

For Jeremy, sex was less an ordeal these days than it had been prior to the creation of the
little blue pill
. Before the prescription, on-again, off-again EDD (Erectile Dysfunction Disorder, to Jeremy a better sounding word than
impotence
) had left him feeling frequently frustrated and embarrassed. For Jeremy, humiliation could lead to anger, anger inevitably to violence.

Jeremy confessed to being many things, but a violent man he was
not
. He was a lover, not a fighter: anyone who had ever challenged him to a barroom brawl could attest to it. But when his equipment failed to respond, as prior to the days of Viagra it often had, Jeremy became downright ornery, lashing out at whatever or whoever was near at hand. (Funny how a few ounces of viscera could cause such
grief
.) But he’d always made up for it afterward hadn’t he, with gifts? Yesterday, the spirit had been willing but despite a dose of the good stuff, the machinery had not. He’d reacted poorly, desperately, and, he worried, irrevocably.

Waking this morning, Jeremy was aware the consequence of his behavior would not be so easily forgiven through the purchase of a gift, no matter how precious or rare.

Radigan retrieved the converter from the tangled bed sheet, switching the television to CNN. A video showed a group of disorganized men running through the desert, waving AK47s, Kalashnikov’s—or whatever the fuck—in the air and shouting in a language he did not understand.

Nuke ‘em
,
thought Jeremy; bomb the fuckers back into the Stone Age where they belong. Jeremy didn’t vote, had never had the inclination, but he was nonetheless fully supportive of the Administration’s recourse to violence as a desirable diplomatic alternative and occupation as a legitimate foreign policy objective. After 9/11 and two long, drawn out wars, who wouldn’t be?

After repeating herself for a third time, Jeremy decided Erin Burnett had little in the way of new information, even if she was hot and, he decided, he’d like to squeeze her tits. He switched off the television. Still naked, Jeremy moved from the bedroom to the bathroom, relieved himself, shaved carelessly, and neglected to shower or to rinse his teeth before dressing.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“MY CONDOLENCES,
Maggie,” was all Dojcsak offered, arriving that morning at Missy Bitson’s home to question the family. He couldn’t say, “I’m sorry”. Not knowing the child well, he wasn’t.

Maggie Bitson regarded Dojcsak with indifference. He was an unwelcome yet necessary intrusion and but for her daughter’s death would not be here at all, a painful reality lost on neither the victim’s mother nor he. Maggie smiled without warmth, her greeting a hollow salutation.

Together with Pridmore, Dojcsak arrived shortly before nine on the morning after the body was discovered, about the time Missy was being removed from a basement cooler to the autopsy room at the hospital morgue thirty-five miles away.

The sky was now blue, without trace of last evening’s rain, the day clear with only a hint of malingering fog. It remained like fluffy pillows in the isolated dips and low-lying areas where the sun’s warmth had yet to penetrate. Glittering crystals of morning dew shivered like tear drops on the ground, clustering in shallow puddles on the Bitson walkway and front steps.

Dojcsak was careful to avoid the damp and to keep his shoes dry. His feet were sore from the already long day, custom fit orthopedic footwear being a small comfort to his collapsed arches. At one hundred fifty dollars a pair, he begrudged the expense, relenting to try them under pressure from his wife and the podiatrist highly recommended by his next door neighbor and Rena’s closest friend, Kate, a registered nurse. It wouldn’t do to get the shoes wet. Or his feet, he thought absently.

At Mrs. Bitson’s reluctant insistence, Dojcsak and Pridmore crossed the threshold from outside the home to in, leaving the damp of an early April morning on the front porch.

Maggie had a flat face—like a pan Dojcsak noted—devoid of makeup and much too round. She had been pretty once, but there remained nothing of the girl in her. Prematurely gray, her hair was pulled back in a careless knot, exposing clearly the consequences of a perpetual frown: three deep creases traveling horizontally across her broad forehead from left temple to right. Her eyes were dull, unexpressive ovals straddling a nose that appeared like a careless afterthought between her cheeks. Maggie gave the impression of looking on life without really seeing it and while given the circumstances understandable, Dojcsak knew the spirit had abandoned her long ago, certainly before its time.

From the foyer, Maggie ushered them through a narrow corridor, a cluttered artery joining front of the house to back. From above the doorway, a plaster crucifix stared down on them, sorrowful eyes challenging Dojcsak’s own. Though appearing ambivalent, Dojcsak suspected Jesus to be resentful of this fate, made to hang publicly from the cross like a side of beef. If the Bible is to be believed, Jesus was a man, and what man—Son of God or not—wouldn’t be?

As they walked, Maggie struggled to make conversation, idle chatter about the brutal winter just passed and the oddity of a premature spring. But she was either inept at small talk or too traumatized by the magnitude of her loss to make polite if meaningless, conversation. She soon fell silent.

Dojcsak was careful not to scuff the linoleum with the rubber heels of his heavy black shoes, unwilling to give the grieving mother further cause to resent his presence here. They moved beyond the formal living room, to the rear of the home and a sunroom overlooking a patch of untended lawn. The small yard was a tangled overgrowth of reckless weeds, owing as much to the unseasonably warm temperature, Dojcsak conceded, as to indifference.

Maggie instructed Dojcsak and Pridmore to sit, he on a well-serviced but surprisingly comfortable sofa, she on a less accommodating straight back chair. “I’ll pour coffee. And I’ll fetch Eugene.” She said it like a question but left the room before either Pridmore or Dojcsak could respond.

He watched as she shuffled to the kitchen, using her absence to organize his thoughts, to collect his impressions and to absorb a sense of the Bitsons through their domestic surroundings. Dojcsak believed much could be learned about a family from the way in which they converted a house into a home. Here, in this room, the atmosphere was decidedly
family
. It might have been a den, if Eugene Bitson required, or a sewing room, if Maggie were so inclined, but it was neither.

The room was comfortably cramped, neat and clean if worn with over-use. A La-Z-Boy recliner sat in one corner, like an aging dowager, flanked by a reading lamp topped with an incongruously colored mauve shade. The gaudy lamp covering clashed with the tartan upholstery of the sofa onto which Dojcsak had settled his considerable bulk. Scattered over the hardwood flooring was a mud brown carpet. Observing the eclectic mix, Dojcsak wondered if the entire family might not be colorblind.

In an opposite corner, a veneer wall unit supported a portable color television set and the obligatory—at least in homes containing children—DVR. The television set was on, tuned to an early morning talk show program.
Dr. Phil
, Dojcsak noted, speaking to the issue of fathers who sleep with their son’s wives. Was it incest? Ethically perhaps, but physiologically no, Dr. Phil argued. The studio audience agreed wholeheartedly.

In the basement, the furnace rumbled, compensating for the previous evening’s sub-zero temperature by overheating the small room. In a vain attempt to relieve his discomfort, Dojcsak inserted a thick fore finger between shirt collar and skin. He wished he had water and regretted not having asked.

The Bitson family’s collective memories were displayed here in this room, framed and in print; mother, father and daughters along with a medley, presumably, of assorted relatives and friends. Photographs filled the small room; on the wall unit; on the side-table; and on the walls. (Dojcsak’s own home contained only a handful of formal photographs with Rena, the children and himself, obtained in packages or on sale years ago from the local Sears. Early Polaroids of Jenny when she was young and Luba during the brief time she was healthy had been hidden away, as if for Rena and Ed Dojcsak, forgetting the good times made the bad more bearable.) Dojcsak counted twenty-two photos in all, arranged randomly, though if he were inclined Dojcsak was convinced he could map out a discernible, non-linear pattern.

When it arrived, the coffee was steaming. As if they were guests, Maggie served cream and sugar on the side in separate, etched silver containers. Dojcsak accepted his coffee black, though with three heaping spoons of white sugar. Maggie offered sweets, an assortment of homemade biscuits. Having missed breakfast earlier, Dojcsak was inclined to indulge. He chose one, what he imagined to be a vanilla cream chocolate glazed éclair, then another, and another after that. Pridmore declined, eying Dojcsak reproachfully. She moved from her chair, inspecting the collection of family photographs.

Maggie said, “Eugene will be along shortly, he’s cleaning himself up.” She sat herself at the opposite end of the sofa from Dojcsak. She regarded Pridmore warily as Sara freely handled the framed images, ignoring some, dwelling on others, at times smiling privately. After she’d settled herself, Maggie said, “It’s been a while, Ed.”

“It has; too long. I’m sorry for the circumstances,” he conceded.

“You wouldn’t be here otherwise.” Maggie shifted her weight, as if unable to keep still. “You look well,” she lied.

“I feel well,” Dojcsak replied, indulging in his own small fantasy. “How are your mother and dad?”

“Mom isn’t well; confined to a wheelchair now.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Maggie shrugged, as if it was inevitable.

“My father? He’ll outlive us all.” (Said it as if it were a regret.)

“He’s expanding the shopping mall,” Dojcsak said, referring to the new construction presently under way at the Cloverdale Indoor Mall. “Adding new stores.”

“Six, including a GAP,” Maggie said solemnly. “Missy was looking forward to it.”

Dojcsak said, “It will need a traffic light. The intersection is deadly. Just last week we had a half dozen minor collisions,” he elaborated, as if it were his most pressing concern. He looked to Sara for confirmation.

“How are Rena and the children?” Maggie asked.

“Fine. Luba is holding her own, though we know she won’t improve.”

“Is it easier, Ed, knowing in advance?”

Understanding perfectly, Dojcsak replied, “No, not easier, I don’t think, just different. It allows you to amortize your grief.” He considered this, and added, “Like an ache, rather than a sharp pain. In a way, I suppose that makes it easier.”

Maggie nodded her head in understanding. “I don’t suppose you’re ever fully prepared. I mean, however it happens, losing a child is not something you expect, is it? Not something you plan for.” Maggie looked from Dojcsak to Sara then back, as if challenging them to disagree. “They break your heart don’t they, Ed? Children? You have them, you raise them, and then they break your heart.”

Dojcsak concurred, thinking of Luba and Jen. “If there is anything we can do for the family, please say.”

“Missy is dead; not much you can do now, is there.”

It was a statement, simply made: not an accusation, yet Dojcsak was stung.

“We’ll need to ask you some questions, Mrs. Bitson.” This came from Sara, still standing. “They may seem insensitive, even intrusive, but please understand that they
are
necessary. I can’t say that it will be either painless or quick. In fact, for you and your family, I doubt it will be either. We’re sorry for that.”

Maggie observed Sara, her eyes seeming to take a moment to focus. “Can it be any more insensitive or intrusive than it already is?”

Dojcsak asked, “Was Missy seeing anyone, Maggie? We know she left her cousin at three, but wasn’t expected home until five. It leaves two hours unaccounted for during which she must have had other plans.”

Maggie shrugged, raising her coffee cup to her lips. Her fingernails were ragged, as if she had been gnawing at them with her teeth. Her hand trembled as she returned the cup to its saucer. She told them Missy was sociable, involved in school, extracurricular activities, and with the Church. The Bitsons are Episcopalian. The Church permits the ordination of women. As if they might not understand, Maggie explained. “They allow female Priests.”

Cassie, Maggie’s sister, presided over the local parish and Missy thought she might like that, to follow in her aunt’s footsteps. They were similar, the two, in spirit and beauty. “But then, you know that.” Maggie shifted her gaze between Dojcsak and Sara.

Pridmore flushed, conscious of the warmth rising from the obscurity of her shirt collar, to her forehead and to her cheeks. She searched Maggie’s face for implied meaning or guile. Finding none, she simply nodded. Recalling the victim’s bare midriff, sculpted breasts and pierced naval, Dojcsak felt conspicuous now for having noticed.

“Mandy is cute,” Maggie admitted of her elder daughter. “Though if she’s not careful, she’ll take after me.” She opened her arms as if holding herself up to display.

“Any interests outside of church or the school?” asked Sara, attempting to regain control of the interrogation.

“She danced,” said Maggie.

“In a group?”

“Ballet and modern jazz. Missy was built for it,” Maggie added, referring, Sara imagined, to the victim’s lean and willowy frame.

“Was she taking classes?”

“From Marie Radigan, at her studio. Each Monday morning they were excused from regular gym, the girls who Marie thought had potential. She was getting them ready for the stage, she said, for tryouts with the theater. They use local girls you know, for small parts mostly, but sometimes for bigger roles. This summer Missy is—
was
—going to play
The Debutante
in ‘Lady Be Good’. She’d been rehearsing since before Christmas, perfecting her routines.”

“You say Missy was sociable, Mrs. Bitson. How?” As Maggie talked, Sara scribbled her replies in a notebook.

“She had friends.”

“Boys?” Dojcsak asked.

“Of course, boys. She was an attractive girl.” Maggie gazed at Dojcsak as if it were an accusation.

“Boys, plural,” Dojcsak stated. (Did Sara sense a degree of vindication in his tone?)

The furrows in Maggie’s brow deepened as if they had been freshly ploughed. She pondered his implication, deep-set oval eyes inscrutable, analyzing Dojcsak for an underlying suggestion of impropriety or innuendo. To himself, Dojcsak thought:
The apple never falls far
.

“She wasn’t a nun.”

“Was she in the habit of bringing the boys home, Mrs. Bitson, to the house? To meet your husband or you?” Sara said, tempted to ask Maggie if her daughter was a virgin. She refrained, knowing it would reinforce Dojcsak’s already low opinion of the girl.