A Season in Purgatory (13 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“I assume you are grateful for that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Constant has been your special friend, has he not?”

“Yes, he has.”

“Ever since your tragedy?”

“Yes.”

“Do they know yet who killed your parents?”

“Probably a transient. A drifter, they think. Someone off Interstate Ninety-five.”

He snapped his fingers, trying to recall something. “What’s her name? Your missionary lady?”

“Aunt Gert.”

“Yes, Aunt Gert. I sent her a rather large check for her Maryknoll Fathers.”

“Yes, you did.”

He breathed in and exhaled noisily. The preliminaries had been established. The heart of the matter was at hand. “A terrible thing has happened here, Harry.”

“Yes.”

“It was, of course, an accident. A terribly tragic accident. You know that, don’t you?”

I looked at him.

“It is possible that others might misinterpret the sad facts, once they are known. People like us, we are targets for criticism. Should, at some point, you be questioned, you must say that you knew nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing. Do you understand me, Harry?”

I nodded.

“I need your word of honor, Harry.”

I looked away from him.

“Have you heard from Yale, Harry?”

“No.”

“You applied for a scholarship, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What are your chances?”

“Dr. Shugrue has great hopes.”

“And if the scholarship doesn’t come through? Where will you go then?”

“The state university, I suppose.”

“Is that the University of Connecticut?”

“Yes.”

“U-Conn, isn’t that what they call it?”

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t have quite the ring in the ear that Yale does, does it?”

“No.”

“That’s not really what you want, is it, U-Conn?”

“No.”

“You’re a smart boy, Harrison. A very smart boy. I know that. Shugrue knows that. I’m sure Yale knows that. You’ll probably even get your scholarship. But do you really want to go through college as a scholarship student? Waiting on tables for your classmates? Wiping up after them? That’s what it’s going to be like for you. Having your sport jackets paid for by Constant. Oh, yes, I know all about that. Wearing his shirts, his ties. Don’t you get tired of that? Don’t you want your own things? You’re even wearing Constant’s shoes; I noticed when you came in to breakfast. Where are your own shoes?”

“In the garbage bag in the back of Bridey’s Pontiac that Johnny Fuselli drove out of here in,” I replied. “Along with half of the bat and all Constant’s clothes with the bloodstains on them.”

Both Gerald and Jerry looked at me, aghast.

“Look, Harrison,” continued Gerald. “I am prepared to pay your full tuition for all four years of college. I am prepared
to put you on an allowance that will enable you to have the sort of things that people like Constant have. In fact, my New York lawyer, Sims Lord, will be contacting you shortly in this regard. To hand you a contract, signed by me. A guarantee in writing for a very privileged education. Witnessed. Notarized. Able to stand up in any court, in your favor. But there is a price for all this, Harry. A very modest price on your part. Silence.”

“Mr. Bradley. I saw what happened. I saw Winifred dead. I saw the bat that killed her. It was the bat we lost at the softball game on Easter Sunday when Constant threw it into the woods. He had already hit her with the bat, many times. I helped him move her.”

Suddenly Jerry, silent until then, spoke. His voice was not pleasant. “You realize, of course, that makes you an accessory to the crime, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“That is a very serious charge.”

I nodded.

“Do you know what the consequences of this could be for you?” asked Jerry.

I looked at him. I realized at that moment that I had never liked him. Nor he me, from my first night at dinner in that same dining room when he belittled my aspirations to become a writer. His father intimidated me. He did not.

“Do you?” he repeated.

“Less, I would think, than the consequences for the person who actually killed Winifred,” I said. “Mercifully, I missed that part.”

“That’s enough, Jerry,” said Gerald, waving his hand at his son to back off. “Let me handle this. More coffee, Harry?”

“No, thanks.”

“Constant is a good boy. You know that.”

I felt his statement did not demand an answer, and I gave none.

“He is a young man with a great future.”

I nodded my head but did not reply. We sat in silence.

“These things pass,” he said. “People forget. Life just goes on.”

“Oh, I won’t forget.”

“Yes, you will.”

“No. I am to blame, too. I lifted her up. I helped him carry her off your property back to the edge of the Utleys’ place.”

“I want you to tell me exactly what happened. After you brought my daughters home, did you then return to the club to bring him back here?”

“Yes.”

“Did you drive the Utley girl home, too?”

“No.”

“Did you see the Utley girl?”

“Her name is—was—Winifred.”

“Of course. Did you see Winifred when you went back to the club to pick up Constant?”

“Yes.”

“Did you speak to her?”

“Constant did.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Why don’t you dump Pimple Face and drive home with me?’ ”

“Did she reply?”

“She said, ‘I came with Billy Wadsworth, and I’m going home with Billy Wadsworth.’ ”

“How did Constant act?”

“He was drunk.”

“Drunk? How could he be drunk?”

“He slipped the bartender in the men’s locker room twenty dollars.”

“How do you know that?”

“I asked him the same question you just asked me.”

“What happened to you when you got home?”

“I went to bed.”

“What did Constant do?”

“He stayed downstairs. He said he wanted another drink.”

“Then what?”

“I was awakened by Mrs. Bradley. About two.”

“Go on.”

“She had received a call from Mrs. Utley saying that Winifred had not come home. She came into the room to see if Constant was in bed.”

“And he wasn’t?”

“No.”

“Was that the first time you knew he hadn’t gone to bed?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know if there was a plan for him to meet the Utley girl—I mean, Winifred?”

“If there was, he didn’t tell me.”

“Go on.”

“Mrs. Bradley thought Constant was downstairs in one of the rooms with Winifred. She asked me to go look. She told me to drive Winifred home.”

“Yes?”

“I did as she told me to. I turned on the lights. I went through all the rooms. He wasn’t there. Then there was a tap on the window. He was standing outside. He asked me to go with him.”

“And you went?”

“Yes. That was when I saw her. She was almost dead.”

“That was when you say you carried her?”

“That was when I helped Constant carry her.”

Gerald and Jerry looked at each other. Again no one spoke.

“I would like to go to my room,” I said.

“Yes, of course. Go to your room. Rest. We’ll talk later,” said Gerald. Then another idea came to him. “Perhaps it would be better if Johnny Fuselli drove you over to your aunt’s house in Ansonia. Stay there until you go back to school. It’s best you are not here. How do you feel about that?”

“All right.”

“No, Pa,” said Jerry. “That’s not a good idea. He drove the girls home from the club and then went back and picked up Constant and brought him home. It’s going to look funny if all of a sudden he’s not here.”

“We don’t know what he’s going to say.”

“He’s not going to say anything. He’s Constant’s friend. You’re not going to say anything, are you, kid?” he asked.

“Stop calling me kid,” I said. “It doesn’t fit the bill anymore. I’ve become old overnight.”

I rose and walked to the dining room doors. Just as I was about to open them, Gerald spoke again.

“Didn’t you have a little sneaker for my son? A little fairy feeling?”

I turned back to look at him. The discovery of that feeling by Constant’s family had been a great fear for me, but, once it had been verbalized, I looked Gerald in the eye as I gave my answer so he would understand that it was not a hold he had over me. “I would not put it that way, but if I ever did, sir, I don’t now,” I replied. The feeling had ended, I realized, with the look I saw on Constant’s face as he calmly used the tail of his Brooks Brothers shirt to wipe his fingerprints off the baseball bat with which he had killed Winifred Utley.

Three hours later, at twelve-thirty, the body of Winifred Utley was discovered by Belinda Beckwith, a fourteen-year-old friend of Winifred’s, as she cut through the wooded area that separated the estates of Leverett Somerset and Gerald Bradley. Belinda, already aware that Winifred was missing, first saw a foot, shoeless, sticking up from a cluster of leaves. She approached what she knew would be her friend’s body and saw a vestige of the pink dress Winifred had worn at the club dance the night before. Fearful of fainting, reluctant to scream, she retraced her steps to her own house, where she hysterically told her mother of her frightful discovery. Mrs. Beckwith first called the police and then went immediately to the home of Luanne Utley.

The word spread through the neighborhood. Maids and butlers and gardeners and chauffeurs were seen in little clusters talking from house to house, passing on the latest information. Blood. Bat. Body bag. Her dress up. Her pants down. By late afternoon, the gruesome story was the talk of The Country Club. I had been sent there by Gerald to retrieve Constant’s tennis racket from his locker. He had two more rackets at home and another two at Milford, but Gerald insisted that he would need the racket in his locker for
the spring term at Milford. I knew that I was actually being sent to listen to what was being said at the club.

Leverett Somerset heard the news on the ninth hole of the golf course from Piggy French.

“They found her on my property?” he asked, shocked.

“Between your place and the Bradleys’,” said Piggy.

“I don’t know that I remember Winifred Utley,” said Leverett. “Was she at Weegie’s dance last Christmas?”

“Yes. They’d just moved here. Ray and Luanne Utley’s daughter. Veblen Aircraft,” said Piggy. “Chip Wadsworth drove Billy and Winifred home from the dance. They went to the Wadsworths’ house for a Coke with a few other kids, and Winifred walked home from there.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Ray Utley’s daughter. What a terrible thing to happen in a place like Scarborough Hill.” Leverett immediately hopped in his golf cart and returned to the club.

Corky, the bartender in the men’s locker room, kept the members informed of the latest reports. He had played high school basketball at Our Lady of Sorrows High in Bog Meadow with one of the detectives assigned to the case and was up on everything. “She was beaten so brutally in the attack the baseball bat broke in half, but they only could find half of the bat,” said Corky, excited by his sudden prominence. “The other half’s missing.”

Ursula, the waitress, who was serving drinks in the ladies’ locker room, told Louise Somerset, Eve Soby, and Felicia French that she had seen the Utley girl only the night before at the junior dance. “She was wearing the prettiest pink dress,” she said. “Corky says it was pulled up to her waist when they found her. Winifred just loved to dance. You should have seen her and Constant Bradley dance together. Everyone in the place stopped to watch them. Of course, he’s the best dancer ever, if you ask me.”

At the mention of Constant Bradley’s name, Louise Somerset’s face darkened. When Ursula moved on to take orders at another table, Louise leaned forward and whispered something to Felicia French and Eve Soby.

“You never told me that before, Louise,” said Felicia.

“We decided not to talk about it at the time,” said Louise Somerset.

“Was Weegie hurt?” asked Eve.

“Scared mostly. You promise not to talk about that?” asked Louise. “Leverett would kill me if he knew I told.”

“Oh, darling, of course not,” said Felicia.

“My lips are sealed,” said Eve.

Reporters and television news people filled the area, ringing the doorbells of the great houses in Scarborough Hill, wanting to interview anyone who knew Winifred Utley. Buzzy Thrall’s gardener made the mistake of telling one reporter that “everyone” was at The Country Club, playing golf, and within a quarter of an hour the club veranda was crawling with reporters and photographers, trying to get inside.

“Don’t let any members of the press into this club,” ordered Leverett Somerset, acting in his capacity as club president. “You know how they make places like this sound when they write about them in the papers. They’ll say we don’t have any black members. They’ll say we don’t have any Jews—which we do, by the way, the Minskoffs—when what they should be writing about is who killed Winifred Utley.”

“How about the police?” asked Corky.

“What about the police?” replied Leverett.

“Can we let them in?”

“Of course. We welcome the police.”

At the Bradley house, Bridey Gafferty answered the door over and over and said each time to the reporter or
newscaster that none of the family was at home. Johnny Fuselli, who had returned from dumping the garbage bag, across the border in a nearby state, offered to stand guard at the gates at the end of the driveway and keep out the reporters, but Gerald declined the offer, saying it might be misinterpreted by members of the media. My clothes were moved from Constant’s room. I was back in the room that I had come to think of as my own, next to Constant’s, the one that Grace Bradley once referred to as Agnes’s room, although Agnes had not rested her head on those pillows for many years. Constant remained in his room throughout the day, visited from time to time by his father and brothers. Jerry, when he wasn’t in the dining room with his father, sat most of the time in the upstairs sewing room with a pair of field glasses watching the police at work on the far side of the tennis court. What would come to be known as the Bradley family machine began to move into action. Sandro arrived from Washington. Desmond appeared and told his father that the autopsy was being performed at St. Monica’s Hospital by Dr. Liu, the state’s chief medical examiner. Johnny Fuselli moved all the cars to the back of the house so that they could not be seen from the street. Then he changed into trunks and hopped into the pool and began swimming laps furiously. In no time, Jerry appeared at the side of the pool.