THE RIGHT TIME TO DIE Read online

  “Dojcsak,” McMaster said, “you’re a knob.”

  “So you keep telling me,” Dojcsak said, “but if she finds out, you’ll have to start buying your own, asshole.”

  McMaster agreed, nodding his head gravely. Despite being the eldest son of the wealthiest man in the county, Leland was always broke.

  “Ed-ee-oh,” he said to Dojcsak, “let’s walk.”

  They separated from the group, walking to the river, away from the bandstand and along a footpath where the crowd thinned out, toward the dam and a barrier that had been erected the previous year in an effort to keep curious visitors and reckless teens from wandering too far along the break wall. In summer, when the water was low and conditions dry, it wasn’t hazardous. But in the early spring and late fall, when water levels became elevated, the drop in temperature caused a thin film of ice to accumulate on the concrete, making the surface slick. Dojcsak wondered at the number of suicides here who had been classified mistakenly as accidental death. After all, a walk along the break wall at any time between December and March guaranteed, to someone looking, virtually the same result.

  They crossed over the barrier, ignoring the warning that read, “No Unauthorized Personnel Beyond This Point”, and stood on a promontory overlooking the river. Tons of water came together below them in a swirling mass, making conversation difficult.

  “She was found there,” McMaster said, pointing.

  Dojcsak acknowledged with a shrug, mesmerized by the roar of rushing water and the gauzy mist rising from its surface.

  “So, Ed” Leland said, “Any plans for next year?”

  Dojcsak dropped his shoulders: it was a question he had asked of himself, and been unable to answer. Like the shadow of the Grim Reaper, the Draft hung that summer over the head of every able bodied young man between the ages of seventeen and twenty who lacked the grade point average to secure an early admission to a decent college or university. Dojcsak, lacking both in aptitude and achievement, was overwhelmed by the possibility of being shipped from Church Falls to Hanoi.

  “My old man wants to send me away,” Leland said. “To college, out of state. Says it will save me a tour of duty, being shipped home in a pine box.” Leland grinned. Dojcsak shuddered. “Rather stay on at the dealership. Old man did okay, didn’t he? So did my grandpa. Between the two of them, not even a grade school education.” Leland paused, and apropos of nothing said, “I knew her, Ed.”

  Dojcsak turned. “You knew who?”

  “Don’t be a knob: the dead chick.”

  “Yeah, well, we all did, kind of.”

  “Yeah, well,” mocked Leland, “I kind of knew her better than most.” McMaster launched his cigarette butt into the water with a flick from his forefinger and thumb.

  “You never said,” replied Dojcsak.

  “Should I have?”

  “When it comes to chicks, you usually do.” Chicks: on Dojcsak’s tongue, the word sounded false.

  “I knew her, Ed, okay. Good; real, real, good. Do I need to draw you a picture?” Leland did not bother to elaborate.

  Dojcsak flushed. Turning away, he said, “She’s dead, Lee; not something I’d brag on, I were you.”

  “She put out, Ed; the chick was no angel, you know.

  “But the cops said—”

  Before Dojcsak finished, Leland interrupted. “What, Ed? What did the fuzz say? That she wasn’t fucked? Ed-ee-oh, you’re a knob. Not that day maybe, but believe me, the chick put out; she rode the greased pony. And not only me; she had a reputation.”

  With nothing to say, Dojcsak didn’t. Down river the celebration continued, though Dojcsak imagined Americans less in need these days of celebration than distraction, what with the recent conviction of Lieutenant William Calley in the premeditated slaughter of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai and the dour Tricky Dick Nixon appearing nightly in homes across the nation, unapologetic for the violence or the mounting civilian casualties, warning of the prospect for more to come.

  Where people had gathered, puffs of white smoke could be seen rising from a dozen barbecues ignited and set up around a perimeter of green space; a dime for a hotdog, fifteen cents for a soda, forty cents for two of each. People danced. Over the roar of rushing water, Dojcsak couldn’t hear the music, but the sway of bodies was proof enough it was there.

  Leland dragged a hand through a tangle of thick blonde hair. In profile, his good looks were undeniable. He was handsome, though lacked the generosity in his sharp features that would make him truly appealing. Perhaps, Dojcsak thought, it would come with age; and, perhaps, it wouldn’t.

  “She was fourteen, Ed. Fourteen-freakin’-years-old. How was I supposed to know? She looked eighteen to me.”

  “Sure she did, Lee, which is why you didn’t show her off?” Dojcsak recalled an image of Shelly Hayden; the yellow sundress, the orange hair, the freckles, and the bright pink toes. Who could blame him? They had all thought her to be older. “How long were you poking her?”

  “Since summer started,” Leland answered.

  “You saw her later that day, after we split up, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Leland admitted. “Unfortunately.” He seemed to consider before saying, “But I didn’t touch her, not a finger. Never had a chance. Bitch told me to piss off, Ed; can you believe it?” McMaster spat toward the river. Turning to face Dojcsak, he postured like a peacock. “Can you believe it? She told me to piss off. Who wouldn’t want a piece of this?”

  Dojcsak rolled his burning cigarette between his fingers until the paper split. The shaved tobacco began to spill out in small slivers, carried down river on the wind. “You must have been pissed-off.”

  Without thinking, McMaster said, “Yeah, felt like wringing her neck.”

  “Did you tell Sidney?”

  “Tell him what? That I was with her? That I felt like wringing her neck? Ed, am I as dumb as you look?” Leland said. “Don’t be a knob. Of course I didn’t. And give me another smoke.”

  “Eat me,” Dojcsak said.

  “You wish. Now give.”

  Dojcsak complied, and said, “If you admit to him you knew her, it will look as if you were hiding something.”

  “Yeah, but if I say nothing and he finds out anyway?”

  “I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut.”

  “You were me, Ed, you wouldn’t be such a knob.”

  They smoked. After a while, Dojcsak asked, “What will you do?”

  “Fucked if I know,” replied Leland. “But I didn’t do it, Ed, which does me no good. If Womack finds out I was feeling her up, he’ll skin me alive.” Leland inhaled deeply on his cigarette. “I could go to my old man.”

  “Why?” asked Dojcsak, “If you did it, you did it.”

  “I didn’t,” Leland said. (Did Dojcsak sense a faint note of desperation?) Observing Dojcsak, his eyes small and hard, Leland said, “Is that what you think?”

  Dojcsak paused before answering.

  “C’mon, Ed; tell me. Is it what you think?”

  “Well, you were the one fucking her, right?”

  “Right, Ed, I knobbed her, like the Kama fucking Sutra I knobbed her. But it doesn’t mean I killed her.”

  “Jail-bait.” Dojcsak grinned. “They call it that for a reason, Lee.”

  “Ed, you’re a knob.” They stood, watching the water, not speaking, each preoccupied with his imagination. Leland broke the silence. “Help me out, Ed.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Talk to Sidney, he’s your cousin.”

  “Sure, all of a sudden I’m good for something other than fags.”

  “C’mon, Ed, be a pal.”

  “He’s the Sheriff, Lee. Sure, he’s my cousin, but I hardly know the guy.” Dojcsak inhaled then exhaled, allowing his smoke to be carried by the wind. McMaster remained silent, hoping to motivate Dojcsak by sheer force of his will. Relenting, Dojcsak said, “Okay, I will. What do you want me to do?”

  Leland half-smiled. “Lie, Ed; like a rug, l
ike a dog, like a five-dollar whore. Tell Sidney we were together, you were with me all day.”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “As a retainer, chum,” Leland said conspiratorially. “On something I might be able to do for you in the future, you know? You might want a sniff of teen pussy yourself someday. I mean, the guys say you’re a homo, but…” Leland left the thought unfinished, moving closer to Dojcsak, placing an arm over his friend’s shoulder. It was at once the most distasteful yet natural thing to do. “C’mon, Ed-ee-oh,” he teased, “smell my fingers.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “YOU’RE HERE.”

  It was an accusation, an implicit rebuke uttered with mild but conspicuous contempt by his subordinate officer.

  “Sorry,” Dojcsak replied, and as if it was sufficient explanation, “the fog.” He did not bother to mention a stop for take out coffee and a surly service station attendant with whom he had argued, accusing the man of filling his cup only half full.

  “It’s thick,” Christopher Burke agreed, drawing his head like a turtle into the warmth of the upturned wool collar lining his leather jacket. They were standing at the mouth of the alley, a long throat at the end of which lay the body. Dojcsak had parked his car on the street against the curb, facing south in the northbound lane of the town’s main street boulevard, among a half dozen other marked and unmarked State and County police vehicles. It sat fifteen feet away, engine cooling, rhythmic ping of oil dripping to its pan audible even from here.

  Burke hadn’t moved to greet the older man when he arrived. He stood at the corner of a red brick building that flanked the entrance to the alley, smoking, content to let Dojcsak come to him. A reflection, Dojcsak imagined, of the esteem in which Christopher Burke held his superior officer.

  “He hasn’t solved a major crime in twenty years,” Dojcsak had once overheard him say to fellow deputy Sara Pridmore. “That says something if you ask me.”

  “He hasn’t had a major crime in twenty years,” Pridmore argued in Dojcsak’s favor. “If you ask me, that says more.”

  Dojcsak endured the young officer’s latent disdain. Burke was no Dick Tracy, but neither was he an Inspector Clouseau.

  Together they walked from the street into the lane.

  “How’s Sheila?” Dojcsak asked, inquiring of Burke’s wife.

  The younger man shrugged. “She’s pregnant, Ed. How would you expect her to be?” he said, as if hoping for a helpful response. Sheila Burke was expecting her husband’s first child. “If it isn’t one thing, it’s another,” he complained. “The kid can’t come too soon for me.”

  “She’s due when?” Dojcsak knew the date but had forgotten.

  “Like I said, not soon enough.”

  Dojcsak sighed, thoughts drifting to his own daughter. He said, “Don’t begrudge the kid before it’s born. It’s too heavy a burden for any child to bear.”

  “She’s been pregnant seven months, Ed, we haven’t had sex for six. Can you imagine what that’s like?”

  Dojcsak simply shrugged his broad shoulders and bowed his large head, an acute sense of privacy rather than pride preventing him from explaining that yes, he could imagine exactly what that might be like.

  “Doctor says it’s a girl,” Burke said.

  “Congratulations,” replied Dojcsak half-heartedly. “A daughter for your wife.”

  The alley was bleak; a narrow corridor flanked on either side by brick, relieved at uniform intervals by shuttered doorways and suspended yellow pot-lamps. There were no windows here and no access to the sunshine that might otherwise illuminate a dreary interior. The buildings were holdover from an era prior to urban renewal, when function triumphed over design; there was a need, a structure erected to accommodate it.

  The entire neighborhood was an outpost on the southern edge of the village, an island of stagnation separated from the more prosperous north by the river that flowed east to west across the horizon, a branch of the Hudson briefly reversing direction before eventually winding its way south toward Manhattan Island.

  As a teenager, Dojcsak had spent his formative years on these streets; his first cigarette, first kiss, and where he had copped his first serious feel, a disastrous experience that left him feeling awkward and ashamed. No one except the locals came here anymore. What remained of the businesses located on this side of town were lucky to squeeze subsistence level earnings from their meager trade. Dojcsak suspected they were anticipating future development, the day a wealthy syndicate might offer ten times face value for their ramshackle holdings. He surveyed the grimy alley; Dojcsak hoped the merchants would not hold their breath too long.

  The fog hadn’t lifted but unlike the street passage here was clear. Rain dropped from a canopy of hanging mist that seemed to broach the gulf above their heads from rooftop to rooftop between buildings. Dojcsak noted the rutted pavement and was careful to mind his step. With his brain still foggy from alcohol, simple obstruction became obstacle, for Dojcsak the inconvenient walk a treacherous journey across a shattered wasteland of cracked asphalt and debris. The alley reeked of neglect, the unmistakable odor of decay.

  “It’s here,” Burke said, interrupting Dojcsak’s observations. “The bin.”

  From a distance he’d seen the halogen arc lamps, courtesy of the local detachment of the State Police. He’d seen them, but not what they revealed: the bin obviously, but not the body.

  “Inside,” Burke said.

  “Inside,” Dojcsak repeated, as if the cadaver’s presence here might be an undesirable but no less unavoidable fait accompli.

  Dojcsak surveyed the activity around him, acknowledged faces he recognized, familiarized himself with those he didn’t.

  The State Police had arrived earlier and now stood aimlessly about, redundant at this hour, crowd control so early on a Monday morning unnecessary. By dawn they would be gone, leaving the scene in custody of a solitary officer, the rain and a six-inch wide strip of yellow synthetic police tape. In twenty-four hours evidence of murder and the body would be erased. In the neighborhood, life would return to normal with most never having noticed it hadn’t been.

  Referring to the police, Dojcsak asked, “How long have we been on the scene?”

  “An hour, an hour and a half. The Troopers were here by the time I arrived. They’d secured the area. I was on duty when the child was reported missing. Dispatch contacted me after the body was discovered. Call came in around midnight.”

  “You were on call?” Again, Dojcsak knew, but had forgotten.

  “It didn’t get me out of bed, if it’s what you’re asking,” Burke said, as if with his wife pregnant how could it? Sheila was at home, secure in the comfort of her single floor bungalow, the one he struggled so hard to purchase and was now working so hard to pay off.

  Recently, Burke had been forced to replace the tarpaper and shingle roof. When asked by his neighbor, “Made to last twenty, twenty-five years aren’t they?” Burke had replied, “Are we talking about the shingles, or the wife?” in a way calculated to make the man laugh.

  Being summoned by a cranky dispatcher to the crime scene was bad, he thought now, but knowing he would lose his regular Monday and Tuesday off made it worse. Tomorrow, Burke had planned on scoring some pot, driving into Albany with friends, and possibly staying the night. Instinctively, he sniffed at the damp night air; no sign, he decided, of the telltale weed clinging to either his person or his clothes.

  “Sara worked the search till eleven,” he told Dojcsak. “She’s on day shift tomorrow. I told her to go home, get some rest.”

  “Considerate of you,” said Burke. “I’ve left her a message.”

  “Me too, though not much she can do here but get in the way.”

  Burke waited obediently, deferring to rank, allowing Dojcsak an uninterrupted examination of the crime scene. He shivered in the cold damp, thinking under the circumstance this could take all night.

  Dojcsak sensed Burke’s impatience, the rhythmic shift of body weight fro
m left foot to right and back, as if he were cold, had to go to the bathroom, or both. He understood but would not accommodate it. Dojcsak could not be rushed.

  A State Police identification crew was busy collecting what might prove useful, though Dojcsak suspected the rain would have long before washed clean anything of evidentiary value; prints, fibers, hair, or other links that might form a chain connecting a perpetrator to the crime. Still, they searched the alley and had begun canvassing the neighborhood. Photos were being taken, a videotape of the scene secured, swabs, scrapings, distances, and angles measured and collected.

  Twenty yards away, Dojcsak watched a forensic technician kneel to collect debris from the ground with a set of stainless steel tongs. He placed each item separately in an individual plastic bag, like a sandwich sack Dojcsak noted, heavy duty, one that Rena might use to pack his lunch. A second technician dabbed at the brick of the building with a cotton swab, as if she were attempting to obtain a sample.