THE RIGHT TIME TO DIE Read online

  “I suppose you’re right, young Edward, but by Jasus if the prick doesn’t have a way with the birds.”

  “You would too if your old man owned half the county.” It was fact, said without malice. Dojcsak lit a cigarette, offered to Seamus—who declined—and contemplated the taillights of the speeding Toronado as the vehicle faded rapidly in the advancing gloom.

  They walked together along Main Street, toward the river. It was after eight; already the days were growing short, the sun settling beyond the ridge of the horizon most evenings before nine.

  The school year was fast approaching but for Ed Dojcsak there was none of the uncontained anxiety normally associated with this time of year; he would not be returning. Upon graduation, a decision to join the police force as a new recruit had been made. Although Ed Dojcsak was excited by the prospect, he was not anxious. After all, he was already involved with the affairs of the police, if only marginally, wasn’t he? Had been since the death of the Hayden girl, when Sidney first approached him for information concerning the whereabouts of Leland McMaster on the evening of the girl’s disappearance. Dojcsak had been helpful then, if at the time purposely obscure.

  There was little question that Ed Dojcsak was not an academic; he lacked the aptitude, discipline and grade point average to seriously consider a post secondary school degree. When asked, his instructors said it was not from lack of intelligence; only that Dojcsak’s mind seemed always to be several miles away, in a place no other person could reach, at least not by conventional means of transportation one instructor joked at the time. Conceding his limited prospects for a college education, Dojcsak’s mother imposed upon the goodwill of her cousin and Edward’s maternal aunt twice removed, who in turn imposed upon her son—County Sheriff Sidney Womack—to offer the recent high-school graduate employment as a deputy trainee.

  In the days prior to police academies and minimum requirements, Dojcsak was considered an adequate recruit; adequate if only because he was big and, according to his father, could take a punch, but more so because in the days following the death of Shelly Hayden, Sidney had considered his second cousin a potentially excellent source for inside information on the activities of local teens—specifically Leland McMaster—the reason he allowed Dojcsak to delay his training to September. “Hang out with the kids,” Sidney had said to him, passing Dojcsak twenty dollars in cash, “see what you can see.”

  “So, what’s it going to be then, master Ed? Shall we look to boink a few birds of our own?” Dojcsak observed his friend as if for the likes of them the prospect was unlikely, if not entirely remote. “Well, we can’t just wander, can we?” Seamus said when Dojcsak did not respond.

  Dojcsak paused to crush his cigarette beneath the heel of his sneaker, mind still with the Toronado, understanding finally why it was that Leland’s companion seemed to him so familiar. Dojcsak knew her of course: the scarlet hair. Of course he did; Frances Stoops, the tart scheduled to begin freshman class in August. Dojcsak had once overheard his mother speaking to his father about Mrs. Stoops, whose flowing red hair, short, shorts and bra-less, strapless halters Magda Dojcsak considered obscene. Dojcsak grunted dismissively: it’s true what they say, he thought, the apple never falls far from the tree.

  After a moment, he said to Seamus, “How’s business; any new arrivals or are you still peddling that fluff you pass off as hard core? If I want to see naked hippies, I can see them upriver from the falls.”

  “Ah,” Seamus said, becoming animated. “Thought you’d never ask. My enterprise is growing, Edward, becoming a little business. Through my own ingenuity, I’ve managed to secure a more…a more,” Seamus struggled for the right word, “…a more explicit, if you will, quality of product. As a result, my trade has increased and become much—much—more lucrative. God bless America, Ed; God bless America and the law of supply and demand.”

  “We’re talking dirty pictures, Seamus.”

  “Aye, Edward, be that as it may, but in the world of dirty pictures there’s dirty, and there’s dirty, if you get my meaning.”

  “Seamus,” Dojcsak said, “you’re a knob.” It was what Leland McMaster might have said had he been present, but he wasn’t, so Dojcsak said it in his stead. “Let’s see what we can see then, shall we?”

  With little else that night beyond his own wildly running imagination to occupy his time, Dojcsak relented to accompany Seamus home, to sample first hand the merchandise over which the short redhead appeared to be so excited.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “NICE LOOKING KID,” Abbey Friedman said.

  Paul Kruter shrugged; how could anything dead be nice, he wondered?

  Kruter had been assigned by Jimmy Cromwell as official observer to the Bitson postmortem via a pre-dawn telephone call explaining the circumstances. Though not distressed by the prospect of the autopsy—in his thirty-years with the New York State Police, Kruter had witnessed his share of roadside carnage and otherwise violent death—the Identification Officer did have a twelve-year-old granddaughter, accounting, he supposed, for his discomfort.

  Kruter watched as Missy was wheeled from the cooler to the autopsy room where Friedman supervised the opening of the body bag. The Identification Officer snapped Edward Dojcsak’s seal, unzipped the bundle and stepped aside as the Medical Examiner removed the protective accouterments covering the victim’s hands, head, and feet. Missy was extracted and placed fully clothed on a metal gurney, feet first toward a stainless steel drain running the length of the autopsy room and serving as a catch basin for runoff from the table on which the body would be dissected, and after evidence was collected, washed.

  Abby snapped on a pair of latex gloves with the practiced ease of someone who did it often. She gently fingered Missy’s dark curls. “Nice looking child,” she repeated before moving from the corpse.

  The autopsy room was a small square, a twenty by twenty foot chamber with gray painted walls and yellow ceramic floor tiles sloping inward toward a basketball-size drain. Overhead, fluorescent lights gave the room a sterile hue, though here there was no need for either antiseptic or anesthesia. They weren’t necessary; victims neither noticed nor complained. Located within the municipal hospital complex in downtown Albany and buried beneath a nondescript five level annex, the room was modestly equipped, lacking the more sophisticated life-saving provisions of a hospital quality operatory. The condition of new arrivals here was expected to neither deteriorate nor improve.

  Kruter inserted an unused memory card into a recently purchased twenty megapixel Nikon digital camera. The product monograph guaranteed unequaled resolution and features. It was a device with which Kruter was exceptionally pleased. Plastic bags of varying size and police identification stickers overfilled his briefcase, causing the leather walls to bulge from the pressure of the contents inside. An experienced investigator, Kruter had learned in the course of over two-dozen postmortem appearances to always bring an ample supply of containers for transporting and tagging evidence, and always, always, always to pass on breakfast. (Even though he’d seen dozens of dead bodies, Kruter was unable to predict which one’s might precipitate an unwelcome and embarrassing bout of unexpected nausea.)

  “How’s Paul?” Friedman inquired absently.

  “Peachy,” Kruter replied listlessly. “How’s Abby?”

  The doctor smiled. “Keen, though dead children do have a tendency to spoil my day.”

  Friedman’s perfect teeth radiated like Chiclets from her dark skin. Her caramel complexion and hazel eyes were set deep under heavy brows, making her appear more Arabic than Jew. If asked, Abby would have confessed to a certain discomfort with her appearance. Not owing to its exotic sexuality, but for the fact that while living in Jerusalem, she’d more than once been mistaken for a Palestinian. Upon arriving in America, the great melting pot, Abby’s skin tone had seemed less an issue, until, that is, Nine Eleven. Since then, Abby sensed a subtle, if tangible, shift in the level of tolerance displayed by the citizens of her adopted
country. When visiting New York City, there were certain neighborhoods she and her husband avoided altogether. Thank God Harry was pasty white and that her daughter had inherited his complexion.

  A two-year apprenticeship in Raleigh North Carolina had qualified Friedman for the position she now enjoyed at the Albany medical center and though her professional reputation was at odds with her somewhat imperious temperament, it was not so much that either her superiors or subordinates thought it necessary to complain.

  Meta Carson, a medical resident and a North Western graduate, assisted the Medical Examiner in the Bitson postmortem. It was Carson’s third autopsy, though her first involving a child.

  “Anyone catch the latest on CNN?” asked Kruter, not because he was interested but to pass time until the Medical Examiner was ready to proceed.

  “Not going as well as we thought,” said Meta. “I think the Obaminator blew it.”

  “What do you expect?” offered Friedman. “Those people are fanatics. You can’t plan a war against zealots. Here in the Western world, you have no idea what it means to face the constant and murderous will of religious ideologues. They may swear at you in New York City, even spit, but in Israel, they blow you up.”

  “I don’t know, Abby. This war has nothing to do with terrorism, unless you consider the possibility for it to get worse.”

  When it came to politics, Meta could be counted on to express her strongly biased opinion, even though her supervisor and not she came from a part of the world where American foreign policy failure or success had very real and possibly dire consequences unimaginable to a girl born and raised in rural South Dakota.

  Fearing a descent into rancor, Kruter said, “I have a new camera.” He turned to Carson, extending the Nikon.

  “This is significant,” said Abby, trembling, but willing for now to follow his lead. “Tell Meta why the new camera is significant, Paul.”

  “You see, hon’,” Kruter said to Carson, “When a body dies and the old ticker stops pumping, the force of gravity causes the blood to flow to its lower extremities.”

  “Yes,” Carson agreed. Misunderstanding Kruter’s tone for condescension, she continued. “It collects in pools and settles in unrestricted tissue, or if you like, areas free from surface contact or external pressure. The degree to which a victim’s blood is fixed in the tissue, its location, coloration and tone helps to establish time of death and position of the body at the time of death. I know these things already, Officer; pathology one-oh-one.” Meta’s mind was consumed still with the one-sided carnage she’d witnessed last evening on CNN.

  “Ah, yes,” said Kruter, thinking, at least she’s not talking politics, “but are you aware that while a detailed microscopic and cellular examination might ultimately confirm your conjecture as to cause, time and body position at time of death, a reasonably aggressive or self-serving defense attorney can mitigate your credibility in court?”

  “Tell Meta how that might be done, Paul,” Friedman said, preparing her instruments.

  “Juries generally consist of regular Janes and Joes,” Kruter said, “never medical or law enforcement professionals like us. For the most part—in fact, almost always—a defense attorney will select jurors they consider dumb, or at the very least no brighter than the client they represent.”

  “Ah,” said Meta, understanding.

  “They consider it more egalitarian,” Kruter continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, “increasing the odds for acquittal, as criminals, generally, are stupid human beings. Juries tend to sympathize with people of their own ilk. Anyway,” he said quickly, before Carson could provide additional commentary, “lay juries are confused by detailed forensic analysis; it drives them batty. The only thing that frustrates them more is a medical examiner’s convoluted explanation.”

  He displayed his camera like a parent might a newborn child. “This,” he said, “eliminates that possibility. If you or Abby says the color and tone of the deceased’s blood is bright pink, suggesting carbon dioxide poisoning, this baby will back you up. If you say metallic copper, suggesting the victim passed on owing to an accidental or intentional introduction of cyanide to the bloodstream, it will be very difficult for the defense to contradict the simplicity and accuracy of full color digital pics, something any jury can easily appreciate and understand.”

  “What about Photoshop?” Meta said facetiously. “In a court of law, or the court of public opinion, generally, Americans are pretty stupid.”

  “You see, Meta,” Friedman added as if seeking an end to the interruptions, “where it exists, the notion of reasonable doubt precludes conviction. This reduces the likelihood reasonable doubt will be created by anything said by us. We work too hard to have our work questioned.”

  “Uh-huh, I see. Like the government, who work too hard to have the quality of their propaganda impugned?” said Carson.

  Privately, Abby reconsidered the “Acceptable” rating she had planned giving Carson on her upcoming clinical assessment. Kruter asked how long the autopsy might take.

  “Two o’clock, tops,” Friedman promised, thinking of her husband’s shirts.

  The pathologist examined the clothing and sneakers first. They were damp from the evening before, smudged and dirty from their time in the bin. The tee shirt was a mix of inexpensive cotton and polyester, the faded blue denim filthy with the petrified remains of the container.

  “Who is the presiding investigator?” she asked Kruter.

  “Church Falls’ finest; Ed Dojcsak.”

  “Ah, the big man at the crime scene.”

  “That would be him,” Kruter confirmed.

  “I spoke with him briefly. I get the impression he’s come to his own conclusion, hoping for the facts to support his suppositions. I don’t like that, Paul.”

  Kruter was friendly with Ed Dojcsak. Over more than two decades, they had investigated numerous fatalities: vehicular, suicide, drowning in the unpredictable waters of the Hudson and agricultural mishaps in the surrounding fields. Ed was overly fond of the bottle and where it concerned his daughter tended too much toward self-pity and regret, but essentially, he was a decent man, if in Kruter’s opinion not necessarily a great cop.

  “Ed’s okay, Abby. Out of his league, here, but other than that, okay.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s never investigated a homicide.”

  Friedman looked skeptical. “How does fearless leader justify subordinating this one to the provinces?” she asked, referring to the D.A. “I’d expect him to have alerted the BCI.”

  District Attorney Jimmy Cromwell had achieved his position through a judicious application of intelligence, instinct and will. A skilled orator and deft fundraiser, his greatest ability lay in disbursing patronage when it was inexpensive and converting it to political good will as the value increased. A small dark man with a pencil thin moustache, he was given to wearing dark trench coats and a black fedora, his resemblance to a cartoon character earning him, among staff and close friends alike, the moniker of Fearless Leader. Over the years it had spread and it had stuck, his reputation undiminished by the appearance of Robert DeNiro in the Rocky and Bullwinkle box-office bomb.

  Kruter shrugged. “Jimmy is Jimmy,” he explained. “Case like this is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you gonna’ get ‘till you look inside,” he mimicked in a passable impersonation of Forrest Gump. Both Friedman and Carson laughed. “It’s an election year, Abby. Jimmy is bright, savvy. He’ll want to see which way the wind blows before he decides whether to kick or to receive on this. Ask him and he’ll tell you; his responsibility is to convict, not to charge. If Ed struggles, he’ll call in the BCI.”

  The New York State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation was responsible for investigating homicide on State land, but could be called in to assist local authorities at the request of the D.A.

  “You’re mixing metaphors, Paul,” Friedman smiled. “Either way, Dojcsak shouldn’t expect much. With the rain last night, I doubt we
’ll find fiber or DNA evidence here. Not enough to link someone to the crime. I’m not a miracle worker, you know.”

  With help from Meta, Friedman removed Missy’s clothing. They did not cut the fabric, as they would have done had Missy been an emergency room victim clinging still to the edge of life, but rather pulled it carefully from the cadaver, as if the child were an invalid incapable of performing the simple task herself. Kruter was given custody of the garment. Before securing them as evidence, he photographed each item separately.

  Missy was naked now, her thin body indifferent to the surroundings, unembarrassed at the attention. Friedman obtained samples from the victim’s scalp, eyebrows, eyelashes and pubic hair. Nail clippings were gathered and Friedman instructed Carson to perform an oral swab on the gum area and inside the mouth. She would help with the anal and vaginal swab, she informed her young assistant; not from a concern for Meta’s sensibilities or to ensure the procedure was done properly, but to expedite the process.